Tecumseh Starter Question

[FortyCaliber]

In addition to my snowblower that I've been working on, I have a friend who has a Craftsman riding lawn mower with a Tecumseh engine. Her starter went out. The starter has a welded on bracket that attaches to the engine with 4 bolts. The Tecumseh number of the starter is 36914. The Craftsman number of the mower is 25621 and the Craftsman number of the engine is 143.971300. It is 13.5HP with OHV. After a lot of Internet searching, I was able to cross reference (I think) the Craftsman engine number to the Tecumseh number of OVH135-206901A.

Anyways, they seemed to have changed the starter. The replacement starter seems to have a number of 730326. It only mounts with 2 bolts, as opposed to the old one mounting with 4 bolts. The magnets are broken in the old starter housing. The Bendix seems fine and I bet the armature is, too. If I could just get a housing (used) I'd be all set. Just a new housing alone is as much as the new type starter.

What I'm curious about is whether anyone has had any experience replacing their old starter, that mounted with 4 bolts, with this new version that only mounts with 2? Is 2 bolts really sufficient? This new starter really isn't all that cheap and it wouldn't be a good thing to have it not hold up very long and have to replace it again. I'm sure its aftermarket of some sort, too. The original starter that just went bad is nearly 20 years old. The other option I have is going to a lawnmower junkyard and getting a used one of the same 4 bolt type. Just curious.

Thanks