I've got an 18cc Weedeater Featherlite, the same one Moses used to cut his way through the bullrushes when he crossed the Red Sea, so it's seen some use. I've probably been through this a hundred times with this trimmer and before it's always come down to either something in the filter screen or I did something wrong the last time I put it back together. The normal procedure is to R&R the carb until by some coincidence I manage to get it A) clean and B) reassembled properly, after which it runs fine again. But this one's got me thinking it might be beyond fixing. Now it starts, runs a few seconds, then dies. It repeats that maybe 1-3 times and then refuses to hit again until after it's had a rest. When it began this start-then-stop business, I checked the plug and it was a bit sooty. So I removed the carb, disassembled it and soaked it in OMS for a couple of days. And I replaced the plug. While I was at it I also cleaned the air filter, confirmed fuel lines were clear, the tank was pressurizing, and just for good measure I bought a can of store-bought premix to eliminate the variable of my homemade gas. I tested the spark and it looked weak, but I can never get a good blue spark with this thing because the lead is too short. In order to get a ground I have to stick a screwdriver into the plug hole and touch the plug to the screwdriver, which also means I only get a half-hearted yank on the starter cord because I don't have a third hand for holding down the trimmer. The rubber diaphragms are getting a little stiff but I put in a rebuild kit a couple of season's ago and it's not yet anywhere near as bad off as it was when I did the rebuild. They're still reasonably pliable. One thing that seems to be sort of creeping up on it is I can sometimes get it to start but only by pulling several times, really, really fast, almost spinning it continuously like an electric starter before it'll hit. Which has me wondering if the ignition fire on these things can go bad gradually. Seems to me that also would account for the soot. Slight change of topic, I have a second featherlite of the same model that's identical except for the brand of carb. It's major malfunction is that the pull rope doesn't catch. So if the problem with the other trimmer turns out to be non-carb related, is it a shade tree mechanic-level job to swap everything above the recoil mechanism? Ideas? Hoots and jeers?

The bridge across the bottom of the discharge chute has worn through and broken off on my Mom's old 2-bladed 42" Murray (WalMart) riding mower. I don't notice it cutting especially unevenly but I do think it's much more prone to "scalping," especially when the wheels on one side get a little elevated, like when cutting next to the base of a tree. So I'm wondering if the structural rigidity of the deck itself is all that was keeping the blades parallel, so now when the mower chassis flexes it pushes the blades askew and makes the lower side more susceptible to scalping. If this is the case, might this be fixable, or is the only fix to replace the mower deck?