Yep , will do 

Dad said he freed it up , didnt say he lapped it in so I would say not . He said he could move the piston side to side in the bore. Im gonna bring it back here at some point and have another look/go at it

So , we think it might be dead 
My dad took it home with him the other day and tried to start it with the carb off and just spraying starter fluid straight in .... Got the odd cough out of it the same as when it was here with the carb on but it wouldnt run . His theory was to eliminate the carb and see if it was alive if the carb issues were fixed.
He then took the head off as we did think that there didnt feel like a huge amount of compression , he discovered that the exhaust valve was stuck open and fixed that but also noticed the piston was pretty slack and could move it from side to side a little which is why there isnt much compression 
So, im assuming there isnt much that can be done ?
Is there an old mower graveyard where it could go for parts ?
The strange thing is its really clean , looks like the grass box has never has grass in it , its got surface rust coming through but is in much better condition than the first one.
Bit gutted really

Hi Mick ,
Yes thats what I was trying to explain , the needle had moved in the float and I did move it which definitely helped but didnt cure it completely, maybe we will try and move it a bit more .... Will try and seal the thread a bit better too

Will report back ,

Thanks for the quick reply

Think I might be developing a problem with buying these suffolks 

Hi all ,
I posted late last year about an old suffolk punch that I picked up at an auction ( cos it reminded me of my grandad ) and you guys helped me to get it running. Its still going strong and I use it all the time.
So last week i found another one and this has a different problem. Its a smaller suffolk mower and has a zenith type13 TCA-2 carburettor .The issue I have is that when I open the fuel tap and fill the fuel bowl the fuel drips from the air intake . It seems clear that the carb is flooding and that the float needle is not sealing as the fuel bowl fills but I cant see why not . I have stripped and cleaned the carb and at first thought the needle in the float was in the wrong position as it seemed like it was too short to seal the seating without the float hitting the tickler. The needle slides in the float ( not sure if it should ) so I moved it hoping that would fix it.... It helped but it still leaks . Can you get new floats , needles and the seatings still or can anyone suggest a solution ?
Would love to get this one going too as my dad would like it as its smaller than mine and he could manage it I think .
Thanks in advance

Paul

Hi ,
I ordered some lapping compound and it showed up yesterday so I spent an hour late yesterday afternoon back lapping the blades and was pretty pleased with the results , nice shiny edges to both the cylinder blades and the bottom blade and easily cuts a piece of paper along the whole length. Had to knock a couple of bends out of the end of a couple of the cylinder blades where they had obviously hit a stone or slab or something in their past but other than that it was a pretty smooth process. Took it out and had another go at the lawn and it cut like a hot knife through butter , lovely finely clipped grass ..... been mowing every piece of grass in sight today , playing with my new favorite toy 😂. Think I'm turning into lawn guy 

Hi ,
Quick update . I adjusted the cylinder closer to the bottom plate and had another go , it did cut a lot better but I think it would benefit from a sharpen . Was gonna have a go at back lapping and see what that does . I think my grass was too long to start with as the motor seemed to bog down a bit as i went along a row. I ran over it with a modern mower first to reduce the length and then had another go and it managed much better . Its obvious that this machine is for using much more often than a modern mower will let you get away with and it really just for clipping the grass rather than hacking at hay !😂🤣 and thats fine , just testing its limitations 😅.
If I do get around to a full strip down and re paint etc , I will probably get the blades re ground but thats a job for the winter ( just not necessarily this winter 😄)
Have attached a pic of the second lawn attempt... pretty pleased with that for a £2 auction purchase 

Ok , will do , thanks 

Well , there seems to be a pretty big gap between the bottom blade and the cylinder so was gonna try and adjust that first.
I have also seen these multisharp things to sand them down and then videos of grinding with paste but I have no experience of that or how effective they are.
I would quite like to strip it all down and re paint etc in time but would like to make sure it will work properly before i put that kind of time in.

Hi Mick ,  I tried a pen spring as you suggested and got a good spark again , mower fired first time and ticks over great..... so great that I mowed ( well more hacked and rolled ) the lawn with it    . Am I ok now to leave the spring in there ?
Next job after that is to get it cutting better .

Thanks very much for your help 

Hi , when i look at my profile now , all the posts r there but definitely weren't this morning . Will try the spring and report back

Hi ,
I posted a couple of weeks ago about a suffolk super punch 17" ball bearing mower that I picked up at an auction and was hoping to firstly get running and then maybe restore. I was having issues with getting a spark and after cleaning the points and resetting it looked like I had fixed the problem as with the spark plug laying on the top of the block , i could see good spark. I decided I would clean the carb before starting properly and needed to wait for some bits to arrive and also decided to investigate why the drive lever wouldnt do anything ( fixed that )  so its taken till the end of last week to actually try and restart it .
So when the time finally came around , it started pretty much first pull and ran for about 20 secs .... Then stopped , wouldnt start , no spark . I metered out the spark plug cap and no resistance ( open circuit) .... I had changed the original cap for a new one as that was open circuit too . The new cap can be dismantled and has a small resistor?? inside which i presume is for noise suppression? and that measures no resistance so I am assuming had blown. I figured maybe the new cap was of poor quality so ordered another from a different supplier and fitted that today ( metered it before I put it on and it was fine )  , again , good spark on the block , started first pull and ran smooth as you like for 30-60secs then stopped , wont start , no spark , resistor open circuit again.
So , im at a bit of a loss as to what is causing the resistor to blow in the cap and what can I do to fix the issue ? Starting to wonder if I am flogging a dead horse but it wants to run and is a functioning motor and mower .... For 30-60secs 
Wondering if I should just move it on to someone who has better knowledge of these old mowers ( I basically have none ) ..... but I'd really quite like to win this battle

Thanks in advance for any advice or info

Cheers

Paul

Ps . Cant find my original post anywhere , and my profile shows no posts ??

Hi ,
So had another go at starting it today and I struggled . It tried a couple of times but then died . I still have a spark but the plug is wet with fuel so I think its flooding it . I stripped the carb off and gave it all a good clean . The air intake foam filter sheet was almost solid and just crumbled to dust when I took it off so have ordered a replacement sheet to cut a new one then will have another go. Anyone know of a good youtube of how to tune one of these motors with a zenith carb on it ?
Also Im yet to work out how the roller drive on this works , there is a lever on the right side of the drive case which from the manual you are supposed to be able to move to engage the drive . Mine doesnt appear to move . Have tried to get into the case but two of the three screws are stuck . Have sprayed with wd to see if they will free up a bit

Thanks in advance

Paul

Here's another

Hoping this will work . This is how it was from the auction.. apart from me playing with trying to get a spark . If anyone has an idea of age I would be interested . Is there a way to tell age from the chassis no ?

Thanks again in advance

Paul