Be critical of the assembly hardware you use.

[Auto Doc's]

Hello Folks,

Lately, I have been working on a B&S storm responder generator and ran into a very unusual problem. It developed a hard start problem (on gasoline) just before completing the installation of a Propane kit.

The hard start was not related to any of the work performed, but the ignition coil seemed to be failing. I swapped the coil with a known good one, but the problem remained. After multiple parts swapping, I discovered that someone had used anodized stainless screws to bolt the coil down. (It can't be that? Can it?)

Once I swapped out those two screws, I had a strong ignition spark and the engine ran great. (No ignition kill wire was ever connected)

Somewhere during the history of this engine, someone used the wrong hardware and apparently thought all screws or bolts are made the same, so they should work.

Needless to say, this was a first for me, and I have been doing this kind of work for over 50 years. Like many of you, I have seen plenty of wrong bolts and hardware forced into the wrong threads, but this one had me stumped.

 

[StarTech]

Never heard of anodized Stainless Steel until now. Research says the anodized layer is non conductive. Now still have been between the coil frame and the metal engine mounting point. Maybe that was also oxidized too.

 

[Auto Doc's]

Hi StarTech,

That's what baffled me. I did clean the coil mount stands and set the air gap correctly. Apparently, the proper iron screws have a lot to do with properly grounding of the coil frame.

I have a friend who is a pretty sharp electrical engineer, so I'm going to run it by him and see what he says. He knows all the Laws of electricity very well, but he tends to talk a little over my head once in a while.

Yesterday, I picked one of the stainless 7mm head screws out of my trash to keep for my little "story parts" collection I have accumulated over the years.... They make good visual aids for teaching customers or helpers once in a while.