meatball: Also never tip the mower up with the carburetor (air filter) side down. Oil then runs into the intake tract. Are you mowing on steep slopes? This also causes oil to be sucked into the cylinder. What Bill told you is very likely to be the problem, but I just wanted to mention a few more possibilities, like an oil-soaked paper air filter. If the mower was over-filled with oil or tipped incorrectly at any time in the past, the air filter may have been contaminated with oil. This will make the mower run rich (excessive fuel in the cylinder) which dilutes oil it contacts and burns it. An extremely-clogged air filter could do the same thing. So as you can see you have things to check, the first thing being oil level and condition.

I had the same problem on my old rider. The needle valves were leaking and letting gas leak into the cylinder. When it cranked there was a big plume of smoke that cleared up quickly. Let it go on for a fair amount of time until it would not turn over. The motor was hydrolocked from the gas in the cylinder....This also tended to leak past the rings and filled/diluted the oil......Fixed with a $5.00 manual gas shut of valve. Problem went away......

Scarzi, The diagram by "Lightmaster J" shows you how to wire your 2 lamps in series. This wiring scheme will overdrive the two smaller lamps as if they were a single 48" lamp I might point out one thing. In the diagram, on the left side of the upper tube, Lightmaster shows two pairs of red/blue wires. It may not be real obvious from this drawing, but one red/blue pair connects to one side of the socket(going to one lamp pin) and the other red/blue pair connects to the other side of the socket(going to the other lamp pin). The lower tube in the drawing has the red/blue pair shown a bit clearer. Lightmaster J... I certainly don't mean to knock your drawing. Good job. It is correct and keeps me from having to draw it. Did you say you OD'ed a shorter set of lamps like this? I don't recall. Scarzi... There will also be a GREEN wire (the ground wire) on the power cord. You should connect that wire to a metal part of the fixture. That will ground your fixture. The ground is not only for safety, but it also causes the metal reflector to act as a capacitive field, which helps to ionize the mercury/argon gas on startup. Lightmaster correctly shows the wires between the 2 lamps, connecting the lamp-to-lamp pins, but you might want to use a different color than green. That is just to distinguish those wires from the GREEN ground wire. I use YELLOW myself. Lightmaster does know what he is doing, as this diagram is correct. This is a great way to make a really bright, short fixture. Let us know how it went. Again, good job Lightmaster! I still intend to do a more detailed drawing of this configuration with extra notes - if I ever find the time. Zink

I think you're talking about a gas fired modine, hot air furnace type, not hot water based. If so, it will produce lots of hot air for short periods of time and maybe make the climate uneven. I have a hot water Modine in my garage and love it. Same at work. Very nice heat.