thanks bruce
i continued to tinker, mower starts now, not sure what i did, but cord doesnt recoil. have tried turning centre thingy (lol) to tighten spring, but it just goes round and round and round with no tension occuring at all. also the 3/4 circle metal coil on bottom of assembly was removed, i'm not sure which way it goes, have tried a couple of directions (with triangle bit pointing up), last try got the mower to start on about the 5th pull, lots of rewinding though, then me dancing around back yard yipping for joy, with hubby looking at me strange, cause at least it started. lol.
i think he's now a bit sick of hearing about mowers now cause i learnt a lot from your site yesterday, on and off site over many hours, and keep telling him all about what i find out. absolutely great site for us tinkerers that care to do a bit of research first so as not to stuff up.
if you can decifer all that and hopefully help that would be great, otherwise i'll keep my screwdriver handy and keep rewinding, at least i can try to keep the jungle from forming. lol.
thank you very much
kim