Hello Gentlemen! My mom and dad bought a Craftsman LT2000 riding lawn mower around 2009/2010. The mower looks great! However, it won't start. I'm assuming it needs a new battery. My mom wants to sell it but we have no idea how much we should sell it for. I'm not finding anything online and I don't know anyone with lawn mower knowledge. What price would you suggest for a great looking older mower that doesn't run? Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

I own a Craftsman LT3000 with a six-speed manual transmission. I've used this machine on one acre since the end of last summer without trouble. Here's the review I wrote last year... http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/tractor/msg081107371197.html The one cylinder Briggs Intek Plus engine starts and runs easily. There's plenty of torque even at low RPM. It has no trouble pulling a cart full of soil or stones. The manual transmission is strong, you'll spin the wheels before slipping a belt. As mentioned before, you choose the gear you need with your foot on the brake or stopped. Shifting while moving will shorten the life of the manual transmission. Here's a quick "how to" for the gears... - Lower gears are for pulling a heavy load or mowing very heavy grass. - The middle gears are best for most mowing or pulling moderate loads. - High gears are for when you are merely driving it or pulling an empty cart. - it's best to ease off the brake/clutch at low engine RPM. This keeps you from taking off too quickly. There's no need to rev the engine if you're just driving. It goes fast enough in sixth gear at low throttle to get you where you want to go. You can even pull a decent load at low throttle. However, mowing demands high engine RPMs. Otherwise, you will bog or stall the engine. Your cut will stink, to boot. The good and the bad... GOOD: Strong engine. Strong transmission Strong frame Good on gas Tight steering Metal hood Nice cut quality Oil, air, and fuel filters easy to service Optional bagger works well BAD: LOUD engine at high RPM Dim headlights at low engine RPM Brake is a long reach for short people Seat switch cutout too sensitive for short people Optional canopy is junk I highly recommend the 12.5 cubic foot polycarbonite dump cart. It's strong and won't dent or rust. I've put 800 pounds of field stone in mine without damage. The metal cart is less expensive, yet has sharp corners that can pull clothing or cut skin. It has also a lot more metal to dent or rust. I use a leaf blower to clean my lawn tractor. Peace. Marco

"using catch can, test for fuel flow to carb inlet by cranking engine. Be careful of fire." I would point out this will do no good as the engine has a fuel pump built into the carb. As mentioned way back up on this very old thread, check the vacuum impulse line from the engine block to the fuel pump. This will be the bottom line, gas line is on the side IF you took the fuel pump apart, did you find and properly replace the 2 tiny springs? I can send you a Service Manual for the engine IF you like. Address below, put in proper format and remind me the engine model number and what you want. Walt Conner wconner5 at frontier dot com

Walt, thanks for all the info you have provided. It has been a great help. I think it was you that said my adjusting the valve on the briggs engine in my wifes gilson was the worst case of shade tree mechanicing you had ever heard of. Probably. Except, I was repairing cars (and tractors) since I was 10. I didn't know service manuals existed. I had no feeler gauges or torque wrenches. My mentor was my dad who preferred to drive horses to tractors. He never worked on his cars, but always took them to a mechanic. I Put the wrong head on a 41 chev when I was 11 years old. It took me an hour to remove it and put a different one on and adjust the valves. Anyway, you have told me several times that retorqueing the head won't work. And I have changed several headgaskets that were bad (just as you described). However, I had a new experience with a '75 VW rabbit. It was running badly, so I did a compression check. I had given up on tuneing worn out engines, which is why I always did a compression check. Sure enough, the compression on the center two cylinders was low and the same. I screwed in my air hose adapter, and the air from one cylinder squirted out the other. Sure proof the the gasket was leaking between the two cylinders. On changeing the gasket, I found the egr pipe had rusted and fallen off leaveing a large hole in the intake manifold. Pluging this and the car ran much better, of course. Now back to that head gasket. I inspected that rabbit gasket as well as I could and it was perfect. I concluded that it only leaked when cold and when hot, expansion sealed the leak. Therefore, retorqeing the head bolts would have fixed that one. My grand daughter had a chevy cavailer which was running bad. When I checked compression, some readings were rather low. So I retorqued the head bolts. The compression came up and the engine ran much better. Conclusion: If caught early, retorqeing can seal the headgasket and it is much easier than replaceing the gasket (If I replaced the gasket, I would also make sure the head was flat, probably by rubbing it on some emery paper). Also, new gaskets must be tougher than the old ones were. And did you know that coke cans are .004 to .005 inch thick on the center of their sides? So I left the intake in that range. The exhaust is under .010, and probably .008 (it could have been as low as .007). I'm sure you have seen these gaps quite wide. Intake would have been .015 to .020 and exhaust in the .020 to .025 range before my adjusting. As to her engine numbers, she used the numbers she had showed the guy to pull up a parts diagram of her engine on the briggs site (mod-287707, type-022501, code-970311ZD). She kept asking why the head gasket in the book (and in her hand) didn't look like the one on the briggs site. So I made up a story about 'L' being the cumbustion chamber shape of a valve-in block (What's a valve, what's a block). Girls!!! If I was doing a repair for money, I would do a complete job. A customer wants a working repair. Not a maybe. And doesn't want to pay extra for a second try at fixing it. I would always replace a bad starter, not change the drive gear and/or brushes. Probably replace the short block on an engine that is smokeing or useing oil. Kids are fun! But I try not to help. A little advice when they are stuck, usualy with a science lesson. Oh, In your bolt numbering scheme, I didn't know which bolt was to be number one (I now think you meant top center). On the other hand, I kinda don't believe it matters if you go around several times and take each bolt up just a small amount. So I used the sequence in the 'L' head manual, skipping the bolt under the exhaust which was still hidden and of course the one that was removed for the push rod galley. Oh, I was asking if they retorqued the flywheel nut. What a couple of stooges!! JerryO