[john hall]

382's are great little machines, for mowing grass. Dad has one although we never mow with it, he did put it on sprayer duty this summer. I thought I had seen on here a long them ago where a couple guys had them. Finding one in pristine condition is practically impossible. They were built far better than the Murrays and dime-store models they were designed to compete against. that said, the Briggs engines got tired far quicker than a cast iron Kohler. Also the hydro units would fizzle out. Deck spindles would get a little wobbly as well. The hoods would break at the hinge point. When you consider these expensive potential problems, you can see why a lot of folks that ran them would junk them instead of fix them. Likewise a collector would have to put way more money into one than it would sell for. going back to the one my dad has, it was ran commercially until the engine died. Dad repowered with a new Tecumseh. Finally the hydro began to show its age so we retired it for the most part. I think some guys put heavier oil in these hydros to get a little more life out of them---I need to research that myself. For what it is worth, the one we have is a IH built, red 82 series--to me that counts for something.