A young friend who mows for school money picked up a Snapper with the EH18V engine- I think. LOL. I looks like the EH18V anyway- the exposed metal shroud version- OHV. I handle his repairs as needed. He runs Snappers as I believe they are the toughest, least expensive decks to keep going over the long haul. The engine ran fine when I inspected it, then again when he fired up a couple of times to show off to some motorhead buddies, then after owning it for a day, it would not start. I cannot find that it has any spark. I have removed the kill wire when cranking. Used a cheap Harbor Freight tester (the kind with a light bulb) and the bulb does not light up at all. I sanded off the magnet on the flywheel and the coil face (fairly rusty)- still nothing. I found a SB indicating some had hard restarts when hot due to coil being too far away- I drilled out the mounting holes and moved it closer- I use a Stihl service tag (business card thickness) as my spacer and it works every time- but not this time. Tired a new plug- nothing. So, I am assuming the coil is bad. Finding this thread, I see coils are expensive! If I go by the number provided, I cant even find one for sale using google to search. I have tried all my usual online sources for parts- nothing. In addition, I simply cannot justify spending $100 on a coil for a $300 mower. I have seen many brand new coils with different part numbers on places like eBay that look identical to this coil, but hesitate to start throwing good money after bad. Any chance some of these might fit and work on this motor? Or am I missing something with the existing coil, or does anyone know where I can get one for less than $50, or did he just invest in a boat anchor? I feel bad for him as I advised him I have always heard these were great engines- "The Honda Killer" as I have heard some dealers say about them.

Thanks, I'll check the boots. I think I look at them when I change the oil, but as I said: wife says it has been clicking for some time (I assume a year or more). I also had the car in to the dealer for new tires: good price and a good check-out of the car as they look for anything they can recommend service or repairs on. They didn't mention any boots or joints. This was about 2,000 miles back that the dealer's shop took a close look at the car. In fact they recommended new front shoes and turn the rotors. I left the rotors alone and replaced the shoes myself. Can a CV joint "click" on a slow sharp turn and still work for thousands of miles?

Yep, a leak I put a 10 oz can in last July 3, and the system worked fine all the rest of that summer. That time the A/C was just low, not "too low" and it was still cooling, just not as much as it should. The additional (without gauge) refrigerant brought the delta Temp up to specs. The trouble shooting of no clutch engagement led me to just add another 10 oz can to see what happens. The engine was running with the A/C switch "on" and it took only 10 seconds of the fill (these cans can take up to 10 minutes to empty on a nearly full system) for the clutch to engage and about 3 or 4 minutes to empty the can. I'll let it run this way for a few days and see what happens (it is cool here in NJ right now - in low 40s this morning). If it holds for a week I'll just top off using a guage and some anti leak. If I can get the car through the hot weather of 2013 for under $50 invested, I'll take it and worry abvut next summer if the car and I are both still around. Both of "us" are Senior Citizens. Up to 2009 I had always taken my purchased new cars to a shop to have the A/C serviced. I have kept all cars purchased new for at least 10 years, the 2004 is obviously coming up on 10 years - so new car is on the possible solution list. A 1999 Mazda was my first time adding refrigerant myself, it worked out fine there too - also just added a can to increase cooling, and it worked. I traded that car in before much of a test on the pump-up, but I did keep that car through that summer that I added the refrigerant.

I have a 2019 cross trek and she's just fine. This is our 3rd subaru. I don't think you can beat them for safety or reliability. I specifically was looking for AWD and for the safety features as, I figure as I'm aging, I'm not becoming a better driver. I especially like the headlights that turn as you turn a corner and the auto hi/low beam adjuster. The back up cameras, side lane warnings and front collision signals are wonderful. I did turn off the lane drift feature though as, driving winding country roads which I do all the time, I often cross the yellow line and the warning was annoying. But it's great that you can turn these things off. I'd turn it back on on the highway especially if it was late at night and I'd worry about getting drowsy. I'm looking to give this one to DH and get a new little sweet ride for myself. And one thing I really like about the subaru is how they integrated the screen into the dash so it looks intentional. So many vehicles, they pop the screen on top so it looks like an after thought. I would love to get another subaru for myself, but I'm looking for small, and the subaru sports car is RWD which I won't go back to. So my search continues.