borat

The sad part is that Ariens spent decades building top notch machines , developing a very good reputation and loyal following.   Now that they've stooped to throwing together sub-Ariens quality machines, it will tarnish their hard earned reputation.  They'd be wise to pull a Chinese style marketing trick and change the name of the cheap machines to Errens. 

I wouldn't be messing with the valve lash until the engine has at least 50 hours on it.  Particularly on a Honda engine.  Factory settings are usually adjusted to allow for the engine to break in without adjusting the valve lash.  It doesn't hurt to take a reading to see what they're at, but if the engine is running well I wouldn't be sweating it anytime soon.  

A mechanically noisy engine is sometimes an indication of sloppy valve lash.  However, as the old saying goes:  "Tappy valve are happy valves."   Valves that are a bit loose is not a problem.  Tight valves are.  The reason being that a valve with loose lash setting will always seat properly.  A tight valve may not completely close thus causing hot gasses to bypass the valve and possibly burn it over time.

If your engine begins to lose performance and it has good fuel flow/spark, clear air intake/exhaust, and sufficient lubrication, that's when I'd look at the valve lash.  

Thanks for posting the instructions Trouts.

It would appear that adjusting the valve lash is pretty much opposite to what I'm used to.  Normally, on the engines I've worked on, the nut it what locks the mechanism in place and the screw in the center is used to make the adjustment. 

I own a Kawasaki twin so, I'll be capturing your instructions and saving it as a file for future use.

bus708 wrote:
Not sure where you're getting your information but some of it seems a little inaccurate.  From my experience B&S snow engines do not vibrate more than a Tecumseh engine.  I have an 11 h.p B&S snow engine on my Simplicity snow thrower.  I've used it for three seasons and in some very heavy snow conditions.  The engine performs flawlessly.  It makes much more power than the 10 h.p. Tecumseh's I've owned and actually runs quieter and smoother. 

My limited exposure to Chinese clones has been with good results.   Do a bit of research and you'll see that there are a number of very good Chinese small engine manufacturers.  The brand mentioned above and Champion are two well established manufacturers that make consistently good products. 

There's nothing wrong with Subaru/Robins engines.  They're an excellent product.  Just make sure you check the bolt pattern to mount the engine and ensure that the shaft fits the pulley{s) and that pulleys have the correct height/clearances to fit the machine.  

Check out Small Engine Warehouse if you want to look for a suitable small engine.  They have tons to select from.  

Check to make sure the choke linkage is actuating the choke mechanism.  It appears that the engine isn't getting a rich enough mix to permit easy starting.