It's the black chain case and handle bar shield that was the give away as that was the transition livery when Scott Bonnar did their last Kirby powered machines and swapped over to the full Briggs line up of power plants across the full range of mowers.
The Craftsman was a "Store line" mower, by that I mean that it was made as a budget machine exclusively for particular hardware outlets. Basically like a "Walmart" special in the USA.
Ah........ painting engines, it's a bugger of a job at the best of times. It's not the painting that's hard, rather the preparation that's infuriating as there are so many nooks and crannies that hold flaking paint etc. etc. etc. I've always used a bit of paint stripper that you can purchase at your local automotive store, eg. Autobarn, Supercheap etc. and just apply and clean off and keep repeating the process with small wire brushes and screwdriver blades to remove all the dead paint.
If you have the engine in pieces I would do it piece by piece and then assemble it after you've painted the components and then once it's all back together give it a final coat to cover up all the parts where you've knocked off fresh paint like the bolt heads. don't aim too much at the carby as that will only act as a glue over the smaller moving parts.
Paint colour ? International Orange it is for me.
Cheers, BB.
I live a 24 Hour lifestyle, but every now and again I seem to fall asleep, well at least that's what my wife tells me.
