"Love is ______."

...

Well I guess we are not talking about lawn mowers any more.

But just my two cents.

Check air cleaner.

While you have it off spray carb down with carb cleaner.

Check throttle linkage to make sure you are not choking the engine after it warms up.

I know...my baby is really furry...she's a peek-a-poo. But oh so adorable!!!

And no...hot was in reference to me being a "hot mama"...lol. *sigh*

I'll only accept "hot mama"!!!

Awwww thank you hun! You're so sweet!

Thanks for the Mother's Day wishes...although I am only a momma for a fur baby.

*still sitting and looking pretty*

Many people don't know there is several cities where you are not allowed to own a gun.San fransico,New york city,Washington DC,and a few others I can't think of.They are all in violation of "Right to bear arms".The only reason the law stands is because nobody has taken them to court over it yet.This very stupid idea of taking away peoples guns has never led to lower crime.They tried to outlaw them in entire countries and always had a spike later.

http://www.rense.com/general/failure.htm

Four years after the Dunblane massacre, Britain's tighter gun laws have failed completely. Now there is a race against time to stop the UK from becoming as trigger-happy as the US.

[Officers are being confronted by youngsters on mountain bikes with automatic weapons]

Britain's gun control laws, introduced after the Dunblane massacre in 1996, have proven to be a disaster. There are now an estimated three million illegal firearms in the UK, perhaps double the number of four years ago, and the only effect the knee-jerk political reaction that led to the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1997 has had is to shut down legitimate gun clubs.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1736501,00.html


Sharing the shock of his people, the newly elected Prime Minister, John Howard — just two months into his eleven-and-a-half years in power — seized the chance to overhaul Australia's gun laws, trampling all opposition to make them among the strictest in the developed world. "I hate guns," he said at the time. "One of the things I don't admire about America is their slavish love of guns ... We do not want the American disease imported into Australia." Howard argued the tougher laws would make Australia safer. But 12 years on, new research suggests the government response to Port Arthur was a waste of public money and has made no difference to the country's gun-related death rates.

Though he'd acquired them illegally, Bryant used guns at Port Arthur that were lawful in Tasmania at the time. Howard argued there was no reason civilians should be allowed to own assault weapons — and under the 1996 National Firearms Agreement (NFA) these were all but banned. At huge cost, the government bought from their owners some 650,000 of the newly prohibited guns, which police destroyed. It also implemented mandatory gun licenses and registration of all firearms, helping to restrict to 5% of the population the number of Australian adults who owned or used guns last year, down from 7% in 1996.

But these changes have done nothing to reduce gun-related deaths, according to Samara McPhedran, a University of Sydney academic and coauthor of a soon-to-be-published paper that reviews a selection of previous studies on the effects of the 1996 legislation. The conclusions of these studies were "all over the place," says McPhedran. But by pulling back and looking purely at the statistics, the answer "is there in black and white," she says. "The hypothesis that the removal of a large number of firearms owned by civilians [would lead to fewer gun-related deaths] is not borne out by the evidence."

Firearm homicides in Australia were declining before 1996 and the decline has simply continued at the same rate since, McPhedran says. (In 2002-3, Australia's rate of 0.27 gun-related homicides per 100,000 people was one-fifteenth that of the U.S. rate.) Of course, it's possible there might have been a spike in firearm homicides — and one or more Port Arthur-style events — if not for the gun law reforms. "It's very easy to raise what-ifs," McPhedran counters. "The what-ifs are interesting as discussion points. But, ultimately, for policy making, we have to deal with what is."

And suicide by firearm? Here again, rates were falling pre-1996. And while the decline gained speed after 1996, suicide by other methods began declining then, too. McPhedran and coauthor Jeanine Baker say suicide needs to be examined in a broader context that includes growing public awareness of mental health issues and increased use of antidepressants.

Other researchers have focused on mass shootings: there were 11 in Australia in the decade before 1996, and there have been none since. This appears to be a strong argument for gun laws designed to help prevent massacres like Port Arthur. But McPhedran argues that because "mass shootings have been such a rare event historically ... it's incredibly difficult to perform a reliable statistical test on such rare events." Massacres, she argues, are a separate research question.

It won't seem irrelevant to some that McPhedran and Baker are affiliated with the Sydney-based International Coalition for Women in Shooting and Hunting. But it should be, McPhedran argues: their analysis has been peer-reviewed, approved for publication and should be judged on its merits, she says.

The authors are not recommending that the gun law be repealed, though they do write of their hope that their findings might give policymakers "greater confidence" in approaching firearms policy in the future. "We've set out to scientifically investigate what was happening [with gun deaths] before and after 1996," she says. "We are simply presenting the evidence as it stands." The new Kevin Rudd-led Labor government has no plans to review the existing laws.

If you are not strangling the engine with a clogged air or fuel filter then I hate to say this but you may have burned up your piston rings! This can happen if you run your engine too lean (not enough fuel) or too rich (too much fuel). Both cause your engine to over heat. When your lawnmower is running do both of them smoke especially black and thick? If so check the carburetor for over fueling and then if that isn't the problem do a compression test on the engine. If you have bad compression then you need to have the engine serviced. Note! Older mowers and Rider mowers need to have their engines retrofit to run unleaded gasoline and if not you need to use a lead substitute! I would assume these machines are not classics?

My money is on bad piston rings because what you describe sounds like it in every way. Still a clogged air filter can manifest the same issue!

Fortunately it isn't expensive to have the engine of a lawnmower serviced, the riding mower is a little more price intensive because they have to pull the engine out to service it.

Why thanks.... I try!

I've got a nice Craftsman (mower)...lol. Boy...wish I had a nice "craftsman"! *giggle*

Ah...well ok. I'll just go back to sitting and looking pretty then!

Also...is this the first time you have used it this season? Did it sit with that gas in it all winter? Won't gas go bad sitting that long? I know my daddy always said to put Stabil(?) in engines that will sit without use to keep the gas from gunking up?

Something else you might check also. Do you by chance buy your gas at the same station as you did when you started having problems with the first mower? I have a gas station here in my town that I got bad gas from....water, sediment etc...in the gas. Needless to say I don't buy gas there at all anymore. Changed gas stations...problem went away. Lawn mower's engines are much more intolerant to bad gas that say cars and trucks are.

Check air filters.. and oil/ oil filters .. possibly tune carberator/adjust idle... if this isnt something you can do there should be plany of shadetree small enginerepair guys... much cheaper than replacing whole mower .. if you have to take it to a shop they may try and upsell you new equipment or overcharge.. i find the BEST and cheapest guys are found word of mouth .. i used to use the shop i bought all my trailers and equipment from.. untill i got a old guy through word of mouth that does it out of an old barn in his backyard... they cant beat his prices service or skill levels..

on a side note accidentaly putting 2/cycle mixed gas into your equipment can cause similar symptoms.. and can only be fixed by new seals in motor aka rebuild.. worth it for me on my $5000 dollar or god forbid my 10000 dollar mower but maybe not for your average consumer grade equipment

chili dog and a diet Mountain Dew a nourishing breakfast?

Hummmmmmmmm so I see meet ya in dream land......could ya make sure my steak is MR and crown & 7up to drink please ohhh and ranch on the salad..........