You are already a very valuable member here AVB, and are also playing a strategic role: AFAIK, we don't have another active US-based member who is a professional repairer. Our information on things like US-made ride-on mowers is woefully inadequate, and you may be able to help us with that.
The nearest thing there is to perfect information is what we can get from service manuals, and even there they need to be read in conjunction with service bulletins that we often don't have, so I don't think any of us is ever completely sure that we know the "truth", whatever that is. The system is that if somebody thinks a member may be wrong, they pose the question in a post. Sometimes that leads to a debate of course, but as long as everyone remembers that, as John Denver said, "The truth is hard to come by", we get by. You are following that system, and if I ever depart from it, please tell me immediately.
One of the things we need, is access to more and better information from the manufacturers. The closest we can come to that, apart from publications, is information from dealers and repairers who are in touch with the manufacturers themselves. Of course they are not always able to pass on what they know, but sometimes they can, and it is a great help to this site when that happens.
The global movement to sourcing most small engines and small engine powered machines from China, is an obstacle to service work at the moment because most of those machines are sold unbranded, and an importer somewhere in the world puts a label on them. Those importers usually don't produce proper service manuals and in Australia at least, usually don't handle spare parts. The Chinese source doesn't usually produce manuals either, at least not in English, because each importer wants an individualised document to make it look as if they produced it themselves. This is especially a problem with items like line trimmers, which often need repair (usually due to mishandling by owners). For the moment, what usually happens is that nearly new mowers and trimmers are scrapped over a fault that could be put right in a few minutes.
We may have a different attitude to some of these matters in Australia, due to a distribution system which makes most items incredibly expensive to the end-user unless (in the case of small items) you just buy them direct from a Chinese distributor, with no form of technical or spare-parts support.
