Synthetic grease sounds like a winner to me. My current tube of regular grease in my grease gun has about expired and with the little bit that I go through, a tube of the expensive synthetic grease will last me a while. Yeah, how about that Gorilla glue?...that is some strong stuff. I don't even have to use screws to hold the wood together after the glue dries.

I agree with you, which the chart (“opened with the quick link”) at the bottom of the first long post basically list. Now that I remember, I found a review that stated “the new mower comes assembled and you just add the quart of oil that comes with the mower” which I doubt was a qt. My neighbor new mid grade mower came with a 15 oz bottle of oil. He and his Yardman un-boxed and added some of the oil vs verifying. It smoked so bad I knew something was wrong and ask them to stop and no oil was showing on the stick. I called Home Depot and was told to add the complete 15 oz bottle that came with the mower. We did and the stick checked full. I felt the excessive smoke that finally ended was from the bad positions they had the mower in while adding etc with some oil in it. Directions are not always clear “To Us”! Not to mention being in a hurry w/o looking at any instructions. The Donor Mowers have dried up in this area the last 2-3 yrs. You have to ask for what had been on the curb (after seeing them sit 2-3 yrs outside behind a storage area). The scrap dealers are in larger numbers ahead of the week of monthly City Bulk Pick-up. I still believe maintained residential used mowers vs commercial used mowers are not used an expected lifetime vs a lack of lack of care.

Tom If you have a local NAPA auto parts store. You can pick up a can of Chain and Cable lube (part #1370) that does a great job of lubing the twisted wire flex cables on trimmers. I even use it on my straight solid shaft Husqvarna's.

I opened it up today - The fuel level in the bowl was definitely too high or maybe the needle was just somehow jiggled into a bad position in during transit or something. I cleaned up the outside a little bit, drained the bowl and gave everything a good spray with carburetor cleaner and compressed air. Then I replaced the needle, adjusted the float and replaced the gasket that joins the two halves of the carb. So far it seems ok. I only had enough time to get it torn down, replace the parts and test start it and run it in place for a while. So far, so good. I may do some mowing tomorrow. The rubber on the old needle is definitely not as supple as the new one. I set the float level so that the float was level with the top surface of the carbureter. Prior to that, the fuel was close to filling the entire bottom half of the carb. Thanks for all the tips! I hope it runs OK tomorrow.