Reviving a 1993 John Deere 14PZ walk-behind mower

This was a trade-in towards the tail end of last season, with a gummed up carb. I briefly mentioned it on this thread:

This mower uses the same deck as the self-propelled John Deere 14SB, but it uses cheaper, skinnier wheels that don't have bushings. After almost 30 years, those wheels were hogged out and were very wobbly.

Here's how it looked as of Sept 2022:



Fast forward to May 2023, I replaced its wheels from a Craftsman yard vac that is slowly being parted out. Its front wheels have ball bearings:



And today, I swapped in a 2009 Briggs quantum from a Troy-bilt push mower that had a cracked deck.
The 2009 Quantum engine has the auto-choke setup and a fixed throttle, so the choke/throttle lever was removed from the handlebar as it's no longer needed. Both engines have a 3" long crankshaft, and I was able to transfer the John Deere blade adapter onto the 2009 engine.

I reused the recoil cover that has the John Deere logo on the new engine, and used the metal control cover from a different parts engine to cover up the carburetor linkage.




I may splurge on another pair of ball-bearing equipped set of wheels from ebay for the rear wheels, and then this mower will be one bad Larry.