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Been going through this Craftsman riding mower, replaced coil and plug, bypassed all safety switches and now its only sparking through the rubber boot. And it'll only spark through the boot if the wire is bent a certain way. I've got two good coils and it's happening with both of them. Zero spark out the tip of the plug.

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Any advice?

Read Operators Manual cover to cover. Always use B&S OEM Parts.

what are you grounding the plug body to when you do this? What brand plugs and where did you get them?

sgkent said:

what are you grounding the plug body to when you do this? What brand plugs and where did you get them?

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I am grounding the Champion plug to the frame

In that case your high tension lead is faulty

Hopefully you are knowing that some safeties are jumpered and others are not. Plus the seat switch connector on many contain a shorting so simply unplugging it won't work. Unplug the kill wire on the coil pack and test. Do you have spark then? If not either coils are bad, the spark plugs, or the coil is being installed upside down. Very rarely the flywheel can be bad. If you do get spark after disconnecting the wire then you have a short in the wiring.

Dirk McGirt said:

bypassed all safety switches

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Enough said.

If the spark is jumping thru the boot instead of the plug gap you have two possible problems that both need to be addressed, and one that may be an issue. (1) The plugs are open or the gap is way excessive (2) as others have said, the high tension lead is bad - you may be able to buy a new boot at a local auto parts store (3) there is a possibility that the engine and frame are not properly grounded together.

Thank you all for the input. Mark got it. I initially replaced the coil with a cheapo from Amazon. The lead was bad and it started right up after replacing, although I did replace it with yet another el cheapo part.

I ran it around the yard for about ten minutes and then shut it down, gave it a few minutes and cranked it again. I would not start. I left it alone for the night, went back out there before today's rain and turned it over again. No fire. I'm guessing spark again.

Any thoughts?