This thread can probably be deleted now, as my Kirby-Lauson decided to give up the ghost. I have stripped it down for spare parts and recycled the much needed Zenith AH914 carby into a Southern Cross KXD-2 engine.
I am fairly sure these are the correct positions, as they match well with a photo I saw recently of a working engine. There is still some doubt about the governor lever positions, but really this seems to be the only logical position.
My problem was that I purchased an engine that came with the linkages mixed up, so I was really working blind from the word go.
Something I am finding interesting is that there seems to be a distinct lack of Kirby-Lauson experts on this forum and others, which is surprising, considering how popular these engines were in the not so distant past. Ask a question and nobody seems to know.
Mind you I knew plenty of people back in the day who would not touch Kirby Lauson or Tecumseh engines from that era. But we are all like that as individuals. We all have engines we like and other engines we do not. Some people preferred Fords, others Holdens, and so it goes.
What I do not like personally is that the manuals for Kirby-Lauson were all printed with microscopic illustrations that show little resemblance to the real world. The instruction manuals only tell you the basics, like what spark plug to use and the gap and how to change the oil, and that is about it. We have come to expect this from today's Chinese-made mowers, but really I did not expect it from an engine of that vintage. The Kirby-Lauson and Briggs and Stratton were like the precursor designs for today's cheap, mass produced Chinese engines.
I don't like them from the point of view that they are too difficult to work on. For example as soon as you pull the crankcase apart on the Kirby-Lauson to do something as simple as change a gasket, everything inside starts to fall out. What a stupid design!
However I have an old Rover with a B&S engine and it has shown no signs of dying after two decades of use, but it is starting to show its age too with various "foibles" creeping into it. I understand the foibles. Give it to someone else and they probably would not even be able to start it.
