Nice looking mower. Appears to be in good shape, particularly the reel. Appears to have been sharpened with a relief grind in the past. Only the leading edge of the blade is bright, rather than the entire edge. Looks like it could use a back-lapping, however. That being said, let me focus on the engine. First, the Honda GX is a great engine. Your mower is 24 years old, and a new Honda GX would last at least as long. However, the Honda is a serious piece of change. The Briggs 9 CID "Classic" is also a competent engine, and unless abused should have plenty of life left. Here's what I would do: 1) Remove the carburetor, and then separate the tank and carburetor. The long plastic tube is the main pickup, which lifts gasoline from the tank via diaphragm pump and spills it into a small well directly underneath the carb, The second pickup is a casting projecting into the small well in the tank. The long tube has a screen on the bottom, and it must be free and clear. You should be able to blow gently on the tube, On the other hand, if you suck lightly on the tube there will be no flow as one of the flapper valves has closed. The cast tube has a metering jet pressed into ot and it must flow gasoline. I normally use a set of welding tip cleaners to gently ream out the metering jet. 2) While yo have things disassembled, you should replace the diaphragm in the carburetor. You can only do this when the carburetor off of the engine as the muffler is in the way. The diaphragm is inexpensive ($2 to $4) and widely available. 3) Lastly, while the carb and tank are off, I would check intake and exhaust valve clearances. The valve chamber is directly below the intake and exhaust ports and has a cover held by two screws. Proper clearance is .008 intake and .015 exhaust with the piston is 1/4" beyond TDC with both valves closed. Use a feeler gauge to measure. Usually exhaust clearance is OK because Briggs used relatively high quality steel. The intake, however, is little better than a nail and will stretch causing the valve to lose clearance. If clearance is OK, close up the tappet chamber and proceed to reassemble the engine. 4) If you have insufficient clearance in either valve, you will have to remove the cylinder head, and pull the valves out. Additional clearance is obtained by grinding the end of the valve stem. Remember, you can take metal off but not replace it. Grind slowly and measure often. Reinstall the valves, springs, and retainers, and remeasure with a feeler gauge to insure clearance is correct. Now you can reinstall the cylinder head, put the carb back on the tank, and reinstall on the engine. You should now be good to go.

UPDATE: All fixed up. Here is what I did in case this helps someone else in the future. I bought 2 extensions for my grease gun as lowes. Sorry I threw away the bag, but just ask as they know where they are . In my store they are in the tool section. You will also need couplers for the extensions. My is called Watts LFA-706 1/8 in FIP (3mm). For the spindles themselves the zerk fitting is 1/4-28. Not sure if all spindles are the same size but they did have a fitting chart if you have your old zerk. The reason I was having issues is that the fittings that come with the extensions are rather cheap and one actually broke. I ended up using the one off my grease gun and had no more issues.So now it's fixed and all greased up. I am mowing one last time for winter (down in the south, we are going back and forth between hot and cold right now , but grass is not really growing). Mower has not been used in about a month and batt was low and almost didn't start so defiantly going on the tender tonight when all done. I was advised to wait till near spring to change oil filters/etc but think I will go ahead and buy them so I am ready. As you may remember, I got this mower from a friends Aunt last Dec. He changed the oil to 30w as that is what a dealer told him to use. But is that really the best? I normally used Rottella synthetic in my air cooled engines. Well mower has paid for itself already since it made it one season without issues. When I was sick and had to have a lawn service, it cost me about the same as what I paid for the mower plus my fixes and add ons. So happy about that! Thanks again for all the help!

SUCCESS!! A half hour ago I was sitting down to report failure. For the record I'll report what I did. But the punch line is: google the real problem. I was not actually having F11 or F14 codes, I was having Sud and F02 codes and it does make a difference. There's a good thread about Sud/F02 codes here. And the moral is: While writing this I just had to jump up and check on my machine because it was spinning so audibly fast. It hasn't done that in a *loooong* time. Let me tell you why: The Sud/F02 code is apparently due to a blocked outlet. On retrospect, everything points to this simple answer. I didn't add things together before hand. It's been a long time since I've heard water leaving the drum. And it hasn't spun hard in ages either. The symptoms were longer and longer for the machine to finish its cycle until finally it just failed and started throwing codes eventually. And recently water is left in the drum a little bit too (when someone else used it; I manipulated things so that didn't happen). So all this adds up to: plugged drain. The drain is located behind the bottom panel, removed with three hex screws (see link above). There's a 3" plastic plug to remove and in mine was: ripped plastic hose, broken pen parts, many, many of them (I'm going to kill my teenager), and disposable dental floss picks (I'm going to kill dh), and eraser caps (I'm going to kill my tweenager), and a really, really thick plug of grease and hair and compressed lint and other gook that was just its own unique substance. Oh my. As suggested in the link above, do have many, many towels ready to sop up much, much water that will come out. Also in my water is about 2 TB at least of heavy white grains -- maybe that's just sand -- dh is a marine biologist and teen is a jr lifeguard, spending much time on the beach. Would sand that sits in water soften? I guess not -- don't know what that stuff is. It's kind of hydrated. Practically like oats. Ycccck. And so .... the machine seems fixed. And I'm thinking now that hydrated "sand" is maybe the backing to decaying plastic-backed rugs. What did I do prior to finding the fix? I took the circuit board out again as described by so many above with such luck. I didn't note very much before and want to set it down here for the record. I encountered many, many broken plastic clips, some sitting on the wires, some in the circuit board itself. The whole white plastic housing rattled on its clips even though those three large ones weren't visibly broken. When I replaced it I fixed that back on with duck tape too. Pry the three large white tabs holding the white housing box for the circuit board up with a thin screwdriver, a little bit on one side, then the other, back to the first side. Two people might help but would need to be very light-fingered. There are plastic clips holding the circuit board to the white box. Most of mine are broken (the machine is 10 years old now). Two thin screwdrivers are needed to pry the tabback and then with the other screwdriver, gently press the board up. This must happen back and forth at a couple spots (without touching any solders obviously). The backs of all my solders looked perfect. Two of the tops of my solders looked a little dark in color. Neither of the switches looked corroded. I resoldered all the contact strips. Some looked fine but when I went to remelt the solder, I discovered there just wasn't any there at all, so I added a touch more. I sprayed all the contact strips with electronic cleaner before soldering ; don't know if that was a mistake. Almost all the clips that hold the wiring housings in place are snapped off just from time and the vibration of the machine itself. It's possible a new board housing is in order. I think that's all I wanted to remember for next time. I had some vaseline ready but decided it wasn't necessary. Given how tough it was to slip on the cracky plastic wire housings, I'm thinking that might help the clips go on more smoothly on old machines. OTOH with no exterior plastic clips left to hold the wire harnesses in place, making that too smooth a contact might allow it to wriggle free easier. After I fit it all back in place I was relieved that the machine turned on just fine, only with the same characteristic noisy sound and non-rotation of the drum - another symptom that I forgot to mention (signifying, as it turns out, that plugged drain). Immediately after starting up again the Sud code got thrown again so that's when (duh) I started to google the other codes. This thread is a wonderful repository! In sum: Sud/F02 == plugged drain, remove bottom panel and clean trap F11/F14/door lock == bad circuit contacts, resolder, clean contacts, etc. Here is a link that might be useful: Sud/F02 code fix

This thread is surely far from its original intent. I posted my findings based on first-generation series of the W 48XX and T 98XX. Miele in now into the second-generation of this series and I have seen posts by Larsi regarding some front door/drum gasket issues, and there were some vibration concern by another; Larsi came to a resolution, and I do not know what happened to the person with the vibration issues. But to be fair to Miele the washer is a tad short of third-hundred pounds so floor construction will always be a consideration with that amount of weight. I recommend anyone buying Miele’s to purchase the extended warranty or wait until Miele is offering the extended warranty as an incentive to buy perk. Have Miele certified installers do your installation to avoid any fine-print issues (e.g., lightning strikes). From what I have learned Miele made these models for North America for several reasons: Competition was offering large capacity, and customers were inquiring about this and other features (e.g., bleach dispensing). They were losing sales to people who were turned-off or did not have access to 220V in their homes. There is no doubt that Miele stepping into this territory was stepping-out of their comfort level and their expertise with their existing products. However, I do believe Miele is making a concerted effort to better these products. Will the competition outpace Miele? That is yet to be seen. I do appreciate that Miele products are not “gimmicky.” Would anyone care to provide insights on the "quality" of the internals compared to their less expensive counterparts? This is tall order, and you really have to be at the machine while disassembling it to see how Miele has thought matters through. I can say that Miele uses highly-skilled labor to build these units as the different fasteners, and materials they secure require a deft hand. One clue to Miele’s comprehensiveness is that the back of these washers and dryers are finished similar the sides and front. In others words you can have your Miele washer dryer in the center of your room and the backs would be perfectly acceptable in an exhibition setting. On another note, the styling of these units is exceptional. It would take another long post to describe how well the styling on these units is thought-out. There are some very complex styling cues that all come together and make it look easy, but in reality that are very difficult to accomplish. Miele products remind me very much of Bang & Olufsen, and Apple.