I'm sorry your salty rusty. IMO its a huge waste of time being bitter and in this application, loggers nothing helpful or insightful at all to help the OP with their issue. If you are only comfortable with the antiquated flathead design of some companies lawn equip then I myself would wonder if you have trouble pouring water from your own boots, directions included or not. To say that OHV design is finniky or hokey is quite amusing as its about as that design is almost as old as the hills aswell and is quite straightforward and offers myriad benefits in every aspect compared to other designs. I'm a 30y old car salesman and have been doing it for 10y. Even though I often work 50-60h a week, I have enjoyed replacing transmissions, engines, installing super/turbo charger systems on many different typed of real cars (perhaps to your delight/dismay, mainly Fords) and also just about every other electrical/mechanical process imaginable. So to make inaccurate, broad but mostly ignorant comments about younger generations just shows the exact same traits in yourself that you so loath in mine. OP, from what I gather with the info you have provided it sounds line you broke a chunk of the threaded plug material from the mower. IMO it would be best to either purchase a whole new engine (perhaps craigslist), or find a local reputable machincr shop and see if they can repair the problem. Other than that maybe you could get a gsv160 (newer Honda motor for lawn equipment) and put it on your mower. From the little searching I did on your motor, they are not readily available and when found are quite expensive. The gsv160 can be had brand new (not rebuilt/furbished) for ~$200.

I would much rather have either a liquid cooled Honda or Kawasaki than a brand new $1200 to $1500 aircooled 'tractor' . . . . even if the used ones were pretty well used For the money he's talking about, I don't see how he could go wrong with either one of the used ones he's looking at. While I'm not a big JD fan, I think I would probably buy the green one as parts will be probably easier to come by Don

Thanks for all the comments. I've gone back and forth on this decision so many times and looks like I'll go back and forth maybe another couple more times before deciding. Good thing is I have time to weigh the options. So the driving factors behind getting a lawn tractor are dealing with leaves in the fall and needing to cut the lawn more often during the growing season. I do own a regular mower, a leaf blower, and a weedwacker. I've tried many things to deal with these leaves. I've tried raking and bagging, leaf blowing and bagging, leaf blower mulching and bagging, mower mulching and bagging. In the end I, and sometimes my son too, end up being out there for several hours on the weekends cleaning up leaves during the fall. Things I've ruled out: so-called standalone leaf shredding machines, mowing the lawn twice (once to mulch up everything real small, and another pass to pick them up. I think my poor push behind would get bogged down trying to mulch all those leaves). I've decided to start a compost pile with my mulched leaves so maybe that will help by eliminating the bagging. I stopped by one of our local dealers the other day. One of the Toro mulching mowers (twin blades) was selling for $1000 I believe it was. Maybe a walk behind mulching mower would do better than what I currently have, not sure how much better though. Mine for the most part just throws the leaves in the bag with very little mulching. I saw the Honda HRX (about $700) where supposedly you can barely open the bagging opening and it will mulch up the leaves until small enough to pass through to the bag. It's not clear to me how effective this would be though and I have a feeling both these mowers would bog down with all those leaves under the deck. Part of my thought process was that instead of buying a quality new push mower, I could add some money to that and get a quality used tractor. Maybe I should look into how much it would cost for a lawn service to do my lawn in the fall. I do mulch the leaves into the lawn early in the season but it's not long after that that is no longer viable. As for the lawn tractor and the leaves, after some more reading, I concede the point about needing to empty bags just like you would with the push mower. Although, the tractor bags do hold more than the push mower bags. I see some people have opted to mulch the leaves and use a lawn sweeper in tow for pickup. Reason is the sweeper can hold much more and dumped easily. As far as cutting the grass more often, some have suggested that a push mower might be just as fast if not faster than the tractor. I don't know. A couple of my neighbors (tractor owners) lots are about the same as mine and I start mowing before them and they finish before me. It takes me 1 hr 15 mins walking pace. Doesn't take them more than 45. Actually one of my neighbors does 2 yards in about the time it takes me to do mine. He does have one of those Deeres with the foot pedals so maybe that helps. If I do go this route that may be the way to go. As for the leaves, one of my neighbor uses a bagger and it goes relative quickly. Although he doesn't have the leaf volume that I do and he goes over it about twice a week. He doesn't allow it to accumulate. My other neighbor goes the old fashioned route (rake, leaf blower, bag). He's got 5 huge trees that are all by his property line in the front so the area he has to cover is small. Plus much of those leaves fall on the road and just get blown into my lawn, increasing my leaf volume considerably. As far as buying used, if I go that route, maybe I can pay a lawn/garden tractor mechanic for his time to check it out for me. Same as you would for a used car purchase.

reply by theodocus struck me as coming from the desk of the ad agency of MTD. No mention of the actual operation that involves rolling over uneven terrain and jarring action from bumps and uneven spots and the fragile fabricated axles that bend and crack easily. Oh, there is also the bushings used in place of ball bearings: bushing use requires higher horsepower to move the newer units. The Deere has points and condenser; cost $5.00 and 9.00 respectively and the sears is a solid state igntion. Newer technology is wonderful as long as it is coupled with quality assemblage in a product. I have a 1968 Sears GARDEN tractor with a 12HP Tecumseh Heavy duty cast iron engine with ball bearings and cut with a 42 inch deck and also have a 1976 John Deere GARDEN tractor with a cast iron 10 HP engine with ball bearings and cut with a 42" deck and use both alternately for mowing two acres and for tilling and moving earth, etc.. Each has cast iron axles and mutli-speed hi-lo transmissions and EACH is used for plowing, snowblowing, tilling earth, hauling 1100 lb loads in attached large carts. EACH will run circles around the new 20 plus HP light LAWN tractors made today. Spend 5,000.00 and you will have a comparable heavy duty GARDEN tractor. By the way, good luck on getting even 10 years of use with the new wonders.