Outdoor Power Equipment (Lawn Mowers, Snow Blowers, Chain Saws and more) Discussions

Hi there, always fire up my snowblower using the electric start.  Tried yesterday, and got a whine from the starter, repeatedly.  Felt around the starter and to my surprise its loose. In fact one bolt already fell out & is missing and the top screw is loose.  Hoping to simply replace the missing bolt and tighten up the rest and hopefully the starter will fire.  The problem is what type of bolt fits the starter housing.  Tried the Tecumseh site but it has no schematic showing type/size of bolt.

Got this info from the starter:  Tecumseh 12205  120V 15 amp  33329D

As always, appreciate the advice. 

had the starter on my 8 hp tecumseh do the same thing two winters ago.turned out that when i bought the machine in 86 brand new the electric start was added by the dealer as an option.when they installed it there are(i believe four)blind holes that are cast into the block that need to be threaded to hold the starter in place.they only used three! within two seasons one bolt fell out because of a bad install and before it came out it stripped the threads that were tapped in the block.two years ago the starter wined instead of working and i took the starter off to find the three bolts no longer kept the starter in place tight enought to work. i removed the starter and added one new bolt that i descovered they never tapped to start with and redid the bolt that was bad  that they had repaired several years ago. my starter is now working as it should.the helicoil was a standard u.s.  thread and not hard to find, any good hardware store or auto parts store carries them.

standard   1/4-20 x 1/2.  use a corresponding lock washer.  we also like using blue loc-tite on these fastners.  they see a lot of torque on every use.