
Fixing a walk behind mower rewind starter

The pull rope on the mower
stopped doing its job about 10 minutes after I
fixed the rear wheel problem.
Most rewind starters have 2
white plastic fingers that extend out and grab when the rope is being
pulled and retract when the rope is released and its spring sucks it
back in.
These plastic fingers and the
groove designed to hold them are worn, causing the fingers not to
extend, and now when you pull on the rope nothing happens.
You can get the whole
mechanism for just under 40 dollars from Briggs and Stratton, which is
what I ordered. I was able to use sand paper to smooth out the rough
parts of the plastic to get it going for now, but I suspect it won't
last long due to the deformed groove.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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This particular Craftsman mulching mower has a Briggs and Stratton engine that has a model number of
123K02-0258-E1
which can be found engraved on a black metal plate on the metal cover holding the rewind starter and pull rope mechanism.