Had an opportunity to spend some quality time with the 982 today. Tinkered with the carb some more and now it runs without the choke on. Its nice to be able to disassemble and rod out the carb with it on the machine. After that successful venture we decided to reinstall the grill. The grill fell out on the way home and miraculously didn't bounce of the trailer!
Not only are the springs that hold the grill in missing, the grill is rubbing one of the muffler exhaust ports. Turns out that one of the muffler braces had slid loose from behind the clutch. I pulled the clutch to make sure nothing funny was going on. That's when I noticed the engine was in the mower crooked. About the only thing I had to go on was the grill housing and it looks very centered on the frame. So I loosened the engine and slipped it around a bit. Upon tightening one of the front bolts I noticed the mounting plate lifting up. I finished tightening the engine and then proceeded to address the plate issue. As best as I can figure out, there are supposed to be 6 bolts (3 in each side) in this plate---I only have two, one at each back (driveshaft) corner.
To further complicate the issue, both of those bolts and the ones holding down the engine are fairly new. I can't understand exactly what someone was doing to pull all the bolts. There is no evidence of recent mechanic work on the engine, unless it was pulled to work on the starter or get to the flywheel. Fortunately the mounting plate does not appear to be broken, just in need of more bolts. Should I just assume this was sloppy mechanic work or is there another issue going on here? I can't see the mower dropping out all 10 bolts. I haven't put the missing bolts in yet, waiting to see if anyone here knows of any nasty surprises. I've attached a photo that shows a nut welded to the plate so you know exactly where I'm talking about.