Lawnboy starter recoil Spring

My 30 yr old 19" Lawnboy's starter cord broke. I tried to repair it & in the process, partially unwound the recoil spring. I took it to a local Lawnboy dealer & he said that they would have to tear into the engine to rewind the recoil spring. He said the cost would be several hundred dollars. Does this sound right?

 

i dont know if this helps but my 25 yr old lawn boy had sarter problems. i tore down the top where i could get to it but found that i would have to take a lot of extra parts off to fix it to perfection. i fixed it leaving in its place bolted to engine. i used a screwdriver to put spring back in place. i rewound the rope and manually place plastic gear under flywheel otherwise it wont catch. it works. i suggest seeing if there is enough old rope left to put your grip on it. if not see if you can restring new rope on starter recoil without removing assembly from engine because of all the parts you have take off. sounds like your repairman did not want to spend the time fiddling with it. i opted for the easy way out leaving it on the block.

 

My word....maybe I'm missing something here. The recoil assembly should be on the side of the engine and held in place by one single bolt coming up from the bottom underneath it. You don't even have to remove the bolt, just loosen it. The whole assembly should pull away from the engine block and out into the open where you can work on it easily. A job that should be no more than $50, and that's on the generous side.

 

Just to make sure I'm thinking of the right mower, it's the green and white mower with the primer bulb on top of the engine or up on the handlebar and a shell over the engine that's shaped like a horseshoe crab shell, right?

 

I think all of you guys are right. I took it to a little independent shop & they said it would run about $40. It's the model 5247. I came awful close to buying a new Lawn-Boy @ the shop that told me my unit was beyond repair, which was probably what they were seeking. I sure would have hated giving up my 2-cycle, 19", aluminum deck, simple machine, for a new one that was a 4-cycle, loaded with gadgets, steel deck & cumbersome.