Simplicity Repairs

Today, I finally finished rebuilding the carb for the beast. What a nightmare that thing was. All other carburetors I have rebuilt have a seat that screws in, making for easy replacement of the needle and seat. Briggs decided to press the seat into the body of this carb. I have a manual that details instructions on the overhaul of this carb. It says that I should "use a self-threading screw to remove the seat". Holy crap, are you serious? The largest self threading screw I have is too small to serve the purpose. Even if it fit, all I would accomplish would be to bury the screw into the seat, then MAYBE be able to LIFT the screw while continuing to turn it. I tried an easy-out, to no avail. I tried a tap, to no avail. I then found a large screw whose threads were larger than the hole in the seat, and seemed to have a good grip. Then I place a slightly oversized socket over the seat, and buried the screw into the socket. The seat began to slide out of the hole slowly as I turned the screw. I was amazed that it did not turn at all, it simply climbed straight out. Eventually, after adding a little more shimming, the seat came out. I drove the new seat in with a piece of some of the hardest wood I have ever used. Once that was accomplished, the rest was fairly easy. I had the carb back together in under an hour, including repeated assembly and disassembly of the float and needle in order to set the float height properly. That's pretty good, considering the tediousness with which I have worked on this thing. ( It is not just cleaned, it is polished, inside and out ) I waited for my hawaiian pizza to arrive, ate, and took the newly repaired carb out to install on the tractor. I installed it, used an old squeeze bottle of 3-in-1 oil to squeeze some fuel into the bowl through the vent hole in the top of the carb, and finished all the connections. The whole process went much faster than I expected it to. I stood up to try to figure out what in the world I forgot to do, and eventually realized that all I had left was to start the tractor. So I did. It started immediately, and ran for about 20 seconds, then quit. I added some fuel to the bowl, and started it again. It ran for about 25 seconds, and started to sputter, so I pushed the choke in. It began running much better. I spent the next 20 minutes or so letting it run, and fine tuning it. It now runs without having to have the choke engaged. It's a wonder it ran at all before the rebuild, considering all the grime and garbage I found in the bottom of the bowl. The high speed jet was completely clogged. Oh well, it's clean now, runs well, and looks good, too. Tomorrow, while I have light outside, I'll drag the plow into the garage and get it installed. I'll finally be ready for snow. That whole shattered rod thing really screwed up the snowplowing plans for the season...