sit back , it's long
31 series briggs on a white rider. It had flooded on PO and I bought and fixed. (may have swapped carb) . Used it last and this summer cutting church grass. Did a cut last week. When I lifted hood to close fuel I noticed some smoke from below head above muffler. I checked air intake for oil but saw none. So saturday I pulled it out to start for young lad but it fired but would not speed up. I then checked oil and level was to add and it had used no oil in the 2 seasons. I broke the rules maybe but concluded it was the head gasket. But the old gasket, although missing a bit of outside material, was not blown through. head and piston had light carbon which I cleaned. Valves good and I lapped them. Valves adjusted fine. action good . New plug. ABS has 12 volts and clicks. Verified that governor spring is keeping throttle open. Button it up and start , same thing, hints at speeding up and then won't come up to speed and can get flame from intake. Can sort of keep it running with just right little bit of choke but only slow. I verified spark with inline tester and tried another new plug. No change. So I pulled valve cover to look as I cranked. seemed fine. Hand turning I see compression bump. But when I removed valve cover it had oil that seemed overly thin. ( and my recollection was even no oil in previous removal). So I drain the crankcase and I'm thinking again it's too thin. Now fresh oil. I dropped the carb bowl. Good flow and it stops on lifting the float. I pulled it and no crap . Main jet in side tower is clear. Not 100% on the 3 small idle holes but cleaned with cleaner and air and flowing fine now. Reinstalled and it instantly leaked around the bowl gasket. Left it to go watch Bluejays beat the Orioles in the wildcard game. Thinking now I will swap the carb from a good known rider. And then if no go I have to check the flywheel key. Someone on another thread had the issue with a Kohler and it was the sheered key. Or I check the key first. Funny as it's much like that generator problem I had where it turned out to be a bad plug, not the key.