Respectfully disagree with you Sax on this one. The sound he is hearing is piston slap. It is common among 2-cycle engines in general but even more so with the Duraforce. I suspect the Duraforce has slightly more piston to cylinder clearance to begin with than older models. Anyway, as the crankshaft is partially either up or down it the rod puts a lateral force on the piston and causes it to "slap" against the cylinder wall and make a clanking sound. The sound is more prominent when the engine is slowing down or speeding up. Water cooled 2 cycle engines dampened the noise quite a bit because of the water jacketed cylinder as opposed to the noise amplifying fins on air cooled engines. Suzuki and some others went so far as to put rubber cushions between the cylinder fins to dampen the clanking sound. The sound he is hearing could be worse than normal if the engine has ever had a partial piston seizure. Now.....that being said, It is slighly possible that a crack in the rod on the big end with excessive play in the needle bearings would make a clanking sound but it would not be long for this world if you know what I mean. Piston slap is the noise that gave 2 cycle Japanese motorcycles their characteristic sewing "machine" sound. One of the worst offenders in the piston slap noise arena was the Kawasaki 750cc triple. It was an air cooled wildly ported 3 cylinder big bore 2 stroke that would throw you off in a heart beat. It had a ton of piston slap because they has to make it relatively loose to prevent seizures. The Suzuki 3 cylinder 2 cycle 750 was water cooled and much quieter. As far as curing the noise in the Duraforce. If it is bothering you too much about all you could do is replace the piston and hope you have a tight enough piston to cylinder clearance to not make the noise. A completely different engine of a new shortblock would solve the problem too.

You CAN change the oil in a "sealed" transaxle. I did mine on my John Deere LT155 (which sports a Tuff Torq transaxle.) I wasn't having problems, but the tractor was approaching 300 hours of use and I wanted to change it. I'm glad I did, as it was looking pretty tired! Since these units don't have drain plugs, you will need to remove the transaxle, wash it off, remove the fill cap and turn the unit upside down to get the old oil out. Take notice of how much oil comes out so you can replace with the correct amount of fresh oil. (Mine took 2 quarts) If you're doing this yourself, use a digital camera to take pictures of the way the belts are routed, and to keep track of any linkage/wiring you have to remove along the way. It will help when you go to put it all back together again. My axle called for 10w-30. I used Mobil 1 15w-50 extended performance, and it's been working great going on the second summer after the change. It sounds like a scary job, but I was able to do it in a few hours taking my time. With what a new transaxle costs, I'd give the oil change a shot before buying a new one. A few other thoughts--make sure that the belts are routed and tensioned properly, that the little fan on top of the transaxle doesn't have any broken fins.

Hi Synchrony - To answer your question -- Yes, I know two children who have a history of seizures and resulting developmental delays. (Both talk and walk fine now, though they're 14...) They are both lovely boys, kind, lively, fun, well-mannered, and a pleasure to be around. They're both struggling in school and in special education classes, which is how I know them. There's also the possibility that I (and you) know many other children who had early seizures, but that they're indistinguishable from their peers now, so we don't recognize them. I looked at your link from the other post, and see that you are in the UK. (She's darling, by the way!) As an American, I don't know exactly how your health system works, but I do know that there are resources available for children with developmental delays (and your daughter's development IS delayed at this point), and that as the parent, you will need to PUSH hard to make things happen. Your daughter should qualify for services -- at the very least, Speech Therapy to help her learn to talk, and Physical Therapy to help her learn to walk. I assume her seizures are being taken seriously from a medical perspective? And that she is receiving proper treatment to help prevent future seizures? Her Pediatrician or Neurologist should be able to give you some information about what services are available in your area to help your daughter catch up to her peers. If they can't or won't refer you immediately, please look for parents' groups in your area. Search online, call the schools -- keep looking because they are out there. (You can usually find a group for parents of autistic children, and even though it's not the same problem, they should be able to tell you what steps to take to get your daughter the kind of help she needs to get started.) Quite simply, there is no one else on the planet who cares about your daughter's future as much as you do, and you need to remember this at all times -- particularly when folks tell you to relax and wait and let 'the experts' lead the way. If you 'wait patiently', that means your daughter does not get the services she needs.

Phenobarb does not seem to be any less safe or problematic in cats than it is in dogs, though some cats are notoriously harder to pill and may need their phenobarb compounded. It is a far superior drug for seizure control than is valium, but he may seem doped up at first with phenobarb, too... but it will only be temporary! Starting a pet on phenobarb does not mean they have to be on it their whole lives, but more often than not, seizures come back if you stop seizure meds in epileptic pets. But before you get to that point, blood work is pretty important, particularly an Felv test. Seizures are less common in cats than they are in dogs, and sometimes are NOT epileptic in nature... leukemia virus, FIP and some other brain infections can lead to seizures as well. Testing for Felv is usually straight forward (though rare cats will still be positive for Felv but test negative every time... makes diagnosis very difficult unless you get a bone marrow sample, though I am not suggesting you go that far at this time... pretty expensive!). FIP testing, on the other hand, is not straight forward... and so hard to interpret that most just hope that is not what is going on... not treatable anyway. Brain tumors can only be picked up on MRIs and cat scans, but are not common in 5 year old cats. Toxoplasmosis and a few other much rarer parasitic infections can lead to seizures, so that might be a test your vet will recommend (have yet in 27 years seen one, though). And rarely liver disease can lead to seizures, but most cats 5 years old would be ill and showing other symptoms... Good luck with treatment! Get off the valium though... not a good way to control seizures, as you have already discovered.