Just bought an older Mantis 2 cycle tiller. The tines engage when the tiller is started. Of course that makes it hard to start with the tines on the ground! I don't believe it was doing this when I bought it. I did clean the tines off, add some grease to the gearbox and dry out the airfilter. That's it. What is the problem and how do I correct it?

If the idle is too high the tines wont stop due to the tiller tines are run by a "centrifuigual clutch" which means when you increase the throttle speed the tines will start to turn : there are 2 adjustments you can try,1) adjust the idle screw under the carburetor where the throttle adjustment and a triangle piece of metal touch(your throttle cable wire will be attached to this triangle) ,if the triangle and idle adjustment don't touch and there's a gap between these 2 pieces close the gap by adjusting the 10mm adjusting nut,this will correctly set the idle #2) adjust the idle adjustment screw talked about above till the tines dont turn with throttle set at idle or lowest speed setting