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Most Briggs engines in that size range don't even have an oil pump. They have a "splasher paddle wheel" thingmajig instead. In any case, there is no line that goes from an oil pump to the carburetor. What you're looking at is almost certainly a breather hose that vents the discharge from the PCV...

Of course the EPA knows it. In recent years, the EPA has required so much ethanol to be blended into the fuel supply that the fuel supply literally can't take it all. As cars and trucks become more fuel-efficient, fuel production has fallen far short of EPA estimates, and there's no place to put...

Interesting comments here. I've been working for a lot of years as a small-engine service guy, and I'm the kid that tore down the little Briggs engine on Dad's push mower in 1966, when I was eleven years old. I've seen a few things. Fuel stabilizers don't work to prevent the damage ethanol...

That's wild. Almost every single-cylinder Briggs explosion I've seen involved seizure of the connecting rod bearing (bushing), not the lower crank bearing.

The numbers you provided don't compute, so I can't say. If it's a single-cylinder vertical-shaft engine, it almost positively has an 'impeller' system, and not an actual pump. This is why these engines are so sensitive to oil levels, and tear themselves to pieces when the oil is just a little...

If the engine does not have an actual oil pump, you're wasting your time. The vast majority of Briggs engines don't have oil pumps; instead they have oil "impellers," or little paddles on a wheel that sit in the oil sump and just sort of splash the oil around in every direction randomly. (Most...

There is undoubtedly another key on the bottom of the crankshaft, one that keys the blade flange to the motor. On most push mowers, the blade acts as a flywheel. The engine won't run at all without a blade, and if the blade is not in sync with everything else, you've got no mower. My bet is the...

What do you suggest? Gasoline? Lye soap? Nobody is going to drop the deck off a mower in order to flip it and clean it with a toothbrush after every mowing. Many modern mower decks have a fitting for hooking up a garden hose and cleaning the underside using water and the splattering action of...

Throwing a belt has a lot of different causes. Alignment of the pulleys is critical. (They should rotate as nearly as possible on the same plane, sometimes not possible on a riding mower because the deck moves up and down.) Pulley guards matter; if one is missing, that could cause the problem...

A tree frog? An entire tree frog? There had to be a good story behind that one. Either that or somebody just left the thing parked for a very long time with the fuel cap off.

Something to consider.... On several mowers I've worked on -- all MTD products, including my own Cub RZT50 -- a bit of debris in the fuel tank has stopped the engine randomly. This happens because the fuel pick-up is unfiltered and the fuel has to pass through a narrow 90-degree brass elbow...

Many years ago, my partner and I built a ranch-style house for an owner in Brown County, Ohio. We installed cedar lap siding. The owner came along and sprayed it all with a mixture of 50% Diesel fuel and 50% ATF. He wanted the reddish tone that the ATF would provide. I have to say it was pretty.

I put no words in your mouth, bub. I quoted your post directly. Three times. My point was that you posted extensively (and factually incorrectly) about population growth in various places. And when I called you out on it, you tried to change the subject to birth rates, which is tenuously...

I know a guy whose job it is to go around the county and test pump gas (E10) for ethanol content. (The legal maximum is 10%, but it may contain less than that.) How does he do it? Simple! He adds a measured volume of water to a measured volume of E10, shakes it up for a minute or two, and places...

Oh boy! If you think the UN doesn't have a 'strong political agenda,' I have a nice shiny bridge I'd like to sell you, along with some oceanfront property in Oklahoma. I got my numbers from WorldData.info and several other sources. I'm not a big fan of Fakebook. In your earlier post, you didn't...

Not sure where you're getting your numbers..... China, despite its unenforceable one-child policy, has positive population growth. So does South Korea; nobody knows about North Korea, because they don't share that sort of information. Japan slipped into population decline years ago. US...

I remember that. The commodity price of corn futures nearly tripled too, causing farmers to shift cropland into corn and away from things like soybeans and wheat, and that shift drove up the prices of those crops at the same time. So the folks in Mexico are hungry, and everybody in the US gets...

For perspective, I read not long ago that if all the corn grown in the US that ends up in our fuel tanks was planted in a single unbroken cornfield, the field would be larger than the entire state of Connecticut. More than 40% of all the field corn grown in the US is converted into ethanol. A...

The tariffs the US has placed on ethanol were designed specifically to keep ethanol made from sugarcane (or switchgrass, etc.) out of the country, and to make sure corn was the only feedstock available. Tariffs are just one of the fun ways government makes everything more expensive for everybody.

It's just hard not to see it as some sort of weird - and VERY costly - make-work project imposed by a completely inept government. If the earliest election primaries hadn't historically taken place in Iowa, I seriously wonder if corn-based ethanol (an astoundingly stupid and expensive additive)...

We can argue about what the crap in the carb is, but the essential point is that it doesn't belong there. Ethanol doesn't belong there. Water doesn't belong there. Fuel grade ethanol also contains methanol, which doesn't belong there. (Methanol -- the stuff in Sterno -- is shipped in and blended...

Of course, you can always make your own ethanol-free gas.....

Of course, there's no substitute for running 'em dry before you put 'em up for the season. But I have never been able to fathom a non-political reason to put corn likker in our gasoline. It takes a LOT more (mostly fossil-fueled) energy to make a gallon of the stuff than we can ever get out of it.

I'm not sure what you want a picture of. What I did to fix the problem is all inside the fuel tank, and it would be pretty tricky for me to get pictures of that. The 90-degree elbow I'm talking about is plain brass, without a shutoff valve. It is mounted in a rubber grommet in the top of the...

If the engine is run on a daily or weekly basis, there aren't usually problems. But then there are things like snowmobiles, snowblowers, rototillers, chainsaws, etc. that are often used once or twice a year, or sometimes not for two or three years. There is no escaping the fact that ethanol is...

Exactly. Ethanol is the lifeblood of a mower shop.

Had a similar problem with an older Cub RZT50 that belongs to my church. Replaced all the fuel lines, the fuel filter, the fuel pump, went through the carb, and so on, and it didn't change a thing. Finally pulled off the fender that covers the fuel tank and discovered a brass 90 degree elbow...

The relevant engine numbers -- model no., series no., etc. -- will be stamped into the top surface of one of the valve covers.

The simplest thing to do is disconnect the kill wire from the magneto coil. If it starts with the wire disconnected, then the wire is shorted to ground somewhere. It's up to you to figure out where.

Spraying Sea Foam into the throat of the carburetor is not smart. You might as well pour dishwater in. Your problem will be difficult to diagnose as long as we have no idea what model of Cub you have or at least what engine we're talking about.

Exactly. If your weed-whacker or your chainsaw quits because the gas is junk, oh well. Time to go through the carb. But if the little Continental flat-four in your Piper Cub takes a shit when you're buzzing along 3,000 feet above the surface of the earth, that ain't funny. When it's...

I didn't say there were a couple dozen places to get non-ethanol gasoline on your street. I said there are a couple dozen places in Massachusetts to get non-ethanol gas. It is very difficult to get here in Ohio also. Marinas and airports are the most likely places, and airports often won't...

I had a Briggs V-twin last summer on a zero-turn that showed symptoms of BOTH running too lean AND running too rich. It acted too lean when it was cold and just started, but then behaved like it was choking to death after running for a few minutes. Drove me crazy. (There are some that say that...

There are actually a couple dozen places in Taxachusetts to get the pure stuff. Many are at marinas or airports, where people tend to be VERY serious about the gas they put in their tanks.

I can't count the times I've cracked carbs that are infested with deposits of rust or lime. These things are not carried with gasoline. They come with WATER, which ethanol brings along as its pal. Sure, sometimes it's a problem with a spark plug, or a kill wire getting pinched, or a really...

Good stuff here. The word is "hydrophilic." Ethanol is hydrophilic, meaning that it really likes water, even to the point of attracting the moisture out of the air. In fact, you can actually make your own ethanol-free gas from the E10 stuff by mixing it with regular tap water and letting the...

Few of us share you experience with helicopter engine oils. Few of us have the slightest need for that knowledge. When I was growing up -- probably about the same time you were growing up -- there was none of this "change your oil ever 3,000 miles" bullshit. Even to this day, no car...

It does not matter what sort of oil you use. The purpose of the oil is merely to provide a surface for dust particles to stick to. You could use gearcase oil, chainsaw bar oil, 10W-40 Pennzoil, or the crap you drained out of your truck last Wednesday. The folks who want to sell you "special" air...

The lack of a fuel filter is intentional. Your mower's fuel tank is probably only an inch or two above its carburetor. It's a gravity feed system, and a filter would very likely slow fuel feed enough to starve the engine.

"The mounting screws have penetrated the tank?" Seriously? Did they do this just all of a sudden? Or was it a long-term plot? What do you think?

These motors are a dime a dozen. I would not waste my time trying to patch up a broken crankcase. It's worth stating that the connecting rod broke in the first place because you failed to maintain the proper oil level.

Usually, when these Briggs one-lungers break, the connecting rod pops out through the side of the engine casing. (That failure, incidentally, is almost always due to low oil. Proper oil level is VITAL in these engines.) The block is probably hopelessly tweaked. I can't imagine why you didn't...

First thing I'd check would be that new fuel line feeding from the tank. It can be a bit tricky, but the new line has to be arranged in such a way that the filter lies on the bottom of the tank. It's quite easy for that pickup line to get kinked or curled so that the filter is up off the bottom...

A few thoughts..... First, I've seen instances where the fuel lines on these little carbs are hooked up backwards. Some folks don't understand that the primer bulb on these things is designed to gently draw fuel to the carb by suction. The discharge (pressure) line from the primer bulb should...

The primary weakness of these little two-strokes is the fuel pump, which is inside the carburetor. It's actually nothing more than a paper-thin rubber membrane, very delicate and flexible. Regular pump gas contains up to 10% ethanol everywhere in the US. Ethanol is bad news for delicate rubber...

Sounds like a valve lash problem. 120 psi is too high for that engine, and 0 is obviously too low. It sounds for all the world as if the valve lash was set on both cylinders at the same time, with neither piston at TDC. That would cause one cylinder's valves to be open most of the time and the...

And a very good thought it is! Just last year, I bought a JD 300-series rider from a woman who was positive the transaxle was blown. I paid $200 for the tractor, put a new drive belt on it, pressure-washed the whole thing, and sold it for $850.

I use this stuff, but not all the time. I like to run regular pump gas through most of the season, when I'm using the machines regularly. Then I switch to this stuff around the first of September. The ethanol in the pump gas will do bad things while everything sits over the winter, so I wean my...

Had a similar situation once. A customer reported the same symptoms with his Cub LT1050. It turned out his kids had "topped off" the fuel tank with a garden hose and a bottle of energy drink. That spark plug was wet too.

One way to look at it, but it's simpler just to remove the key. Even if the hour meter is disconnected, you still have things like the carburetor anti-backfire solenoid to deal with, and item that likely consumes more battery juice than the hour meter. I worked heavy highway for many years...