Actually the old green 'n yellow beast has been pretty good to me. After all it is somewhere over 30 years old (when I lost the auger belt and went to the Deere place to get a new one they said 'Boy, that's an old one...') It always started as long as I could keep it in the barn and out of the weather. It has been a problem child since, courtesy of the landlord's fantastic deferred maintenance program, the barn collapsed probably three years ago (Mrs. NoC could probably tell you the date to the day but..) and we moved all our power equipment out of the 'barn' and parked them under a tarp underneath a cedar tree. That was the beginning of my problems with the chunky globull warmthing removing device. I'm still not sure if it got condensate in the fuel tank (although I have over-dosed it with StaBil) or whether the switch points ('Run' switch, handle switches, that stuff..) got corroded frum spending a year under a tarp (which tended to keep humidity and moisture from precipitation 'under wraps' so that the stuff never dried out properly) or whether it's just old age and senility finally catching up to it. My lawn tractor also has had issues since that year of storage under tarp, but I seem to have managed to get most of those issues abated. Big hammers help. er..
For the past two years they have been in the 'shed' (actually one of those 'garage-in-a-box' enclosure thingies) so the air can at least circulate around things.
The J-D originally was electric start, and some previous owner removed the starter and the wiring in some places is, shall we say, not original and suspect. Problem seems to be that if it is warm, it will start. Once it gets cold it becomes a 50-50 thing, and troubleshooting becomes exponentially more difficult..
I haven't yet given up on it, but the more obstinate it becomes the closer I am to replacing it.
After, you know, after "one more winter"... ;-)
Wow! Sorry to hear about your absentee landlord who let your barn collapse on your property. That is totally messed up.
Yes, we had “one more winter” syndrome as well, but it was with another lawn tractor.
Bryan had a Cub Cadet, and it turned into a FORD after only eight years. You know, Fix Or Repair Daily. Every time he
went to mow or use the snow thrower, he had to fix something first.
Thus, my nagging until he finally traded the Cub in for a Deere. We are old, and the Deere will probably outlive us both.
We kept the Cub in our garage, and we keep the Deere there too, for it does not go below 45° in there during the winter.