Found This MTD Yard Bug Riding Mower Deserted! Engine Issue? Drive Belts? Deck Issues? Let’s See!! 

🎉 we grew up mowing our lawns with the snail. It's been a long time since I've seen one of these sure does bring back a lot of memories. The snail mower strikes again! Thank you for rescuing it.😁

I just finished changing shift cables on one. It was abandoned, as far as I can tell because of a broken forward shift cable. Some idiot had robbed the air cleaner from it, water had gotten in the engine. It had not ran with water in it, but it had rusted the intake valve and locked it up. That turned into a 4 hour ordeal getting it to open! But once I got it to move (lots of oil, WD40, transmission fluid and heat), I pulled the valve out and it polished up great. A new carb, new air cleaner, and some fresh gas and it fired up on just a couple of cranks, didn't even have to use starter fluid! And I killed every mosquito on a 4 block area! Remember I said I had to use lots of oil and transmission fluid to free up the valve? All that oil went into the muffler.... Then to the cables... Both shift cables were locked up. I guess that is a common problem with these mowers because rain can go right down the shift lever into the cables. The (broken) forward cable only took about 5 minutes to install. The reverse cable is a BEAR to attach to the transmission. You can see the location, you just can't get there! Once the transmission part is attached the rest is a piece of cake. Tomorrow will be the real test. It is going to mow a yard!

The old spark plug looked pretty white, which means the engine is running lean. I believe adjusting the air/fuel mixture screw to run it richer will help the engine last longer and run stronger.

I have the very same mower. Was out mowing the yard two weeks ago and it just decided it wasn't going into forward or reverse anymore. When it did it slammed into forward so I took my foot off the pedal and it didn't move again. Had to push it back to the garage and there it sits. Neither belt is broken nor frayed.