I have an old snapper mower with a 12 Hp Briggs engine. Last year it quit and would not crank. I had had no spark so I had checked out the wiring and would up replacing the coil. Got the spark going but stillwouldnt crank. So I put the mower up and just dragged it out this week.
I took the Carb off and found the bowl full of rusty water. No I have a shut off valve on the fuel line that had not been opened. I cleaned the carb in an ultra sonic cleaner.
Put the carb back together and put it back on. It cranked right up and ran good. I mowed about 40 minutes with it and bam it just died. My first thought was the carb clogged again.
But instead yanking it off I decided to go back to basics. I checked the spark with a spark tester and it had spark. So I thought yep fuel. When I put the plug wire back I noticed the high voltage plug wire was touching the muffler. I pulled it away and saw that the wire had burnt to the core and was grounding out the coil. I repaired the wire and strapped it so it could not touch the muffler. It cranked right up. By going through the basics again to troubleshoot I avoided a carb teardown. So no matter what you think be sure to go back through the basics to troubleshoot!
I took the Carb off and found the bowl full of rusty water. No I have a shut off valve on the fuel line that had not been opened. I cleaned the carb in an ultra sonic cleaner.
Put the carb back together and put it back on. It cranked right up and ran good. I mowed about 40 minutes with it and bam it just died. My first thought was the carb clogged again.
But instead yanking it off I decided to go back to basics. I checked the spark with a spark tester and it had spark. So I thought yep fuel. When I put the plug wire back I noticed the high voltage plug wire was touching the muffler. I pulled it away and saw that the wire had burnt to the core and was grounding out the coil. I repaired the wire and strapped it so it could not touch the muffler. It cranked right up. By going through the basics again to troubleshoot I avoided a carb teardown. So no matter what you think be sure to go back through the basics to troubleshoot!