So I'm mowing the lawn last night, grass must be 8" high or so due to all the tropical rain we've seen lately here in North Carolina. I shut off the mower to empty the bag. I go to pull start after emptying the bag, and it starts, but suddenly it sounds as if a valve has let go, or the conrod bearings are gone. Shut it back off. Checked the oil-clean as a pin, just changed a couple of weeks ago. Plug looks fine. Start it up again, and it's running much worse. Shut it off. Try to start again, and it snaps the starter rope out of my hand. Weird. Almost like it's out of time...then it wouldn't start at all. Back inside, start looking at prices of new self-propelled mowers, way too expensive...decide to look at things again.

Pull the head, it's all carboned up, but the valves are working properly, and the piston appears firmly connected to the crank. Put it all back together, and still no go. Decide to dig deeper later in the evening (after a Bud Light)...looks like the flywheel key sheared after 10 years, and it was advancing the timing slightly with each pull, eventually getting it too far advanced.

Picking up new key and head gasket this afternoon, will keep my fingers crossed. Really don't need to drop $400 on a new mower right now...

Wifey's away with the toddler, and when I told her that the mower quit, and that I was looking at a new one, she said "I thought you said you wanted to open a mower repair shop someday."

Incentive enough.