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Don’t replace a Briggs & Stratton magnesium flywheel keyway with a steel one.
If the engine suddenly binds up and dies, from mechanical failure, or from hitting a clandestine rock, the magnesium keyway will, snap. It’s supposed to.
And while an hour’s time to fix it, plus a buck to by a new keyway may be inconvenient, it’s less so than buying a new crankshaft.
The steel keyway won’t snap and will cause something else to fail, which is probably more expensive.
Here’s why and how I found this out.
I’m using my landlord’s 20+year-old rototiller when the pull start catches, sucking in the rope that I’d tied to the handle.
It makes this crazy, horrendous squealing noise and dies instantly, from full throttle to nothing in no time.
I spend the next couple hours with a bag of tools and a can of ether trying to start the beast while it backfires at me.
I come to find the keyway in two pieces when I go to inspect the points.
Luckily Don's Saw & Mower Service in Paradise had the part and sold it to me for a buck.
Put it all back together and it fired right up.

Here’s how to handle it.

This particular model was a side-shaft style. Mowers however are probably a vertical shaft.

First take the pull-start cover off.

Then remove the pickup coil, high-tension plug wire and spark plug. (Removing the plug makes turning over the engine by hand easier.)

Now remove the debris screen (if equipped.)

Next somehow prevent the flywheel from turning as you back off the pull-start clutch with a pipe wrench or water-pump pliers. (Be careful not to loose the ball bearings in the clutch.)
The clutch is what is supposed to let the motor spin independently of the pull start. It’s probably aluminum and attached in front of the flywheel.
I used a breaker bar jammed in the flywheel cooling fins and wedged against the tiller blades to hold the flywheel. It’s probably not an approved method but it worked. Locking pliers could’ve probably done the same without risking snapping off a cooling fin and unbalancing the motor.
Perhaps a rubber belt strapped around the flywheel would work to hold it in place too.
Maybe if you’re stronger than I, you can hold it there with your bare hands.

With the clutch removed the flywheel can be coaxed off.
The flywheel came off easily with a Johnson bar wedged between it and the engine block.

Note: [Now is a good time to file the points down and set dwell or gap (as described in my points blog)]
In my case, I sanded the points down with 1,000 grit paper to just touch them up and hoped for the best.

Stick the new flywheel keyway in and reverse the process.

Bingo, fire that thing up and let it make a man of you while you till your new summer garden.
Now for that rock-hard dirt.

Hybrids are a hoax.
They’re too expensive to be economy cars, don’t produce the mileage they’re estimated to have and are bought for image more than anything.
At $22,000, the starting price of Prius is far too expensive to be an economy car. A Kia starts at $12,000, about half and delivers an EPA estimated 35 mpg on the highway. A Honda civic starts at $15,000 with 36 mpg. While a regular Toyota Yaris gets 36 mpg for only $12,000.
That’s al based on the respective companies’ Web sites.
Lets compare: The average conventional car price from above is $13,000. The average mileage is 35.3 mpg.
That’s $368.27 per mpg.
Prius: 46.5 mpg city and highway equals: $473.11 per mpg.
Is $104 per mpg good enough to justify the better mileage?
I’m not knocking the Prius alone. The Civic hybrid promises similar mpg on about the same dough.
People who need more mileage aren’t those who can afford to spend twice as much on a hybrid and wait in line until one becomes available.
Hybrids are a fad, just like SUVs were ten years ago. Its about image.
“Look at me I’m better than you because I pollute less and lessen the world’s dependency on foreign oil,” say hybrid supporters.
Get real.
Its more eco friendly to rock an ancient motorcycle that gets 70 mpg, uses half as much rubber, half as much manufacturing and one battery if any.
Supporting manufacturing alone by buying a new car supports America’s oil addiction.
Manufacturing the new car used dirty coal energy, more valuable resources and supports foreign industry.
Buying a brand new hybrid doesn’t follow any environmentally friendly fundamentals; recycle, reduce, and reuse.
An early ‘90s generic Japanese car can be bought for $2,000 per the Kelley Blue Book. That same generic disposable car probably gets between 20 and 30 mpg. Ask anyone who owns one.
That’s $80 per mpg, $393.11 and six times cheaper than a hybrid.
There’s an economy car.
One that also didn’t require firing up any coal to power the purchase.
But does Gladys, who has driven her generic disposable car for 18 years, tell the world she’s better than and demand car pool rights?
You’ll have to ask her.
The EPA, who estimates mileage, tests cars by putting them through a simulation of driving characteristics, including idling at a stop light.
Hybrids don’t idle, they shut down at a stop light. This exaggerates the estimated mileage of the car.
Any penny pincher would shut their engine down knowing they’d be stopped for a while. Next time you’re stopped by Caltrans for road work, see how many engines are running.
Hybrid technology has been around a long time and is great technology.
Trains have used hybrid technology for years. They run a diesel engine that solely runs a generator to produce electricity for electric motors that move the train. In a modern train there’s no mechanical link between the diesel engine and the tracks.
This saves fuel economy.
The difference is that trains last a lot longer in service than the typical car buyer keeps their car.
GM has a prototype using this technology called the Volt. It’s supposed to hit the market as soon as 2010. It’s supposed to get the equivalent of 50 mpg after an all electric 40 miles using no gas, because it’s also a plug-in hybrid.
GM wants between $30 and $40 grand once the car comes out.
Still not economy.
And isn’t that what mileage is about.
Europeans have had it right for a long time because gas has always been expensive there.
Their small, lightweight cars were cheap and sipped gas, even when the US market was still producing gas guzzlers in the ‘70s.
The Japanese market also capitalized on their pocketbook friendly design from the late ‘70s and still dominate the market today.
Small, used, cheap cars are economy.
Hybrids are to stoke an image.