So I finished my first engine swap. Here it is:
Had a lawnmower at work that was running with no air filter for who knows how long (co-worker is not the sharpest knife in the drawer) and eventually would not run anymore. But, my folks had an old lawnmower engine sitting under their porch from a mower that rusted out about 15 or so years ago (maybe longer). That got the wheels turning in my head. I brought the engine to work, cleaned out the carb and fuel tank, cleaned and re-oiled the air filter, drained the oil and put in fresh oil, and put a little oil in the cylinder. Then I mounted the engine on the old mower, put the blade on, attached the killswitch and throttle cables to the handle, and gave it a try. Damn thing started on the second pull, I couldn't believe it.
I had to do a little finagling to make this engine work. I had to mount it backwards because of the shape of the mower, so I popped the starter cord housing off the top of the engine by drilling out the spot welds that held it on, rotated it 180* and re-attached it with self tapping screws. And because the engine is backwards the throttle cable is too short and the killswitch cable is too long, so there is a curve in the killswitch cable and the throttle cable is mounted about halfway up the handle. But it works! It was pretty cool to take some stuff that would otherwise be junk and turn it into something useful.