You got a good deal on it, since you had a junker of a 4 wheeler...... You won't make a lot of money reselling the mower, but the value is more than the 4 runner in the shape it was in.....
That mower is in almost pristine condition in my opinion..............
Plus Tard Mon Ami ~!~!
I thought Murray's were cheaply built mowers but a guy I work with who works on mowers says they are better than MTD.
The paint on the hood is dead for some reason. I've tried buffing it out with compound but so far no luck. The rest of the body looks fine. I think someone may have left this thing out in the weather. The plastic red engine cover is also faded a bit. But the seat and tires look great.
I haven't done any maintenance on the mower yet but discovered something interesting yesterday.
I was going to remove the spark plug to see what type it took when I discovered it was loose. I could shake it. It wasn't even hand tight! I turned the plug about 2 or 3 turns before it seated.
How's that possible? Looks like the engine would loose allot compression and not even start.
The plug is carbon fouled. This explains why the mower runs rough until I engage the blade. It's running too rich and I suspect engaging the blade puts a load on the engine. Also the next day after I got it, it was sputtering and blowing black smoke really bad. I couldn't get the engine to smooth out so I just cut it off but it wouldn't start. I thought, boy did I get screwed! But next day it started right up but was still idling rough. I guess it flooded out.
This tells me most likely it's the float. Or more like the pin that holds the plastic float to the bowel. I had this happen with my 17.5 HP on my Troy Bilt doing this after it sat over the winter.
This seems to be a problem with those plastic floats for some reason. The pin develops corrosion and the float won't maintain level. I've never really seen this happen much with brass floats.
I have actually fixed this problem on several small engines without even taking the carburetor off the engine. Just pull the fuel line off and the float bowel and spray carburetor cleaner through the fuel port, up through the jets and work the float. Hit it with some compressed air. And rotate the pin around with some needle nose pliers. But I wouldn't recommend removing the pin unless the carburetor is off the motor. it's a bit hard to install a float valve upside down.
The air filter is also really dirty. I can't even see through it. I figured that might be the reason the engine was running rich but I think it's the float.
The oil is not as dirty as I would imagine so maybe someone did take the time to change the oil on this thing. Other than that, I can't tell there was much maintenance done to this mower. My 17.5 engine has an oil filter on it but this one does not. I might check the valve clearances on it. It found it takes longer to scrape the silicone off the engine and valve cover than it does to actually set the valve lash.
As far as selling it. Most likely I'm going to keep it as a 3rd backup. You can never have too many mowers! Unless I can "trade up" for something else. Like this guy did:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/from-paper-clip-to-house-in-14-trades-1.573973