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Hello all!

I own a lawn tractor with a 22hp B&S OHV twin in it. I've been using it with a blower attachment to clear my rather long driveway. It had been working well until we received a foot of snow the other day (lovely timing, Murphy's Law etc). The engine will turn over all day but not start. I have the problem traced to an electrical issue. When I pulled the plug and grounded it to the engine block there was no spark but if I put the terminal directly on the block there was. In order to rule out a safety switch vs ignition coil failure I tried disconnecting a black wire that was connected to the coil to see if the plug would then spark. Sure enough it did. I screwed the plug back in and tried starting and it fired right up. So I let it run for a few minutes and then turned it off to put the cowl and air filter back on, but when I tried to start it up it wouldn't. This time was different though; it would start up and fire for a few cycles and then quit as where before it wouldn't fire at all. Since it's a twin I tried unplugging the black wire from the other ignition coil and that worked, the engine started again. I drove around on the tractor a bit, blew some snow and put her back in the garage. After I shut her down, I tried to start it again to see if it would but no luck. This is obviously some sort of safety switch problem but I don't even know where to begin and I'm running out of black wires to unplug

Thanks in advance for any advice!

I think you may be going in too many directions. Since now it is all back together, hook it all up as it should be, take off the air filter cover, and squirt some carb spray directly into the carb and see what happens. If it starts, then dies after a few seconds, we will know which direction to go.

Please post the model, type and code numbers for this engine. Sounds like you have a connector or wire which is opening, due to vibration.

If it runs when you unplug the coil kill wire then we know it is not fuel related.
I am thinking you have a wire that has rubbed on something. I would look at all the wires and try and find a bad one. If wires look good then start testing switches.

I have said this before. How do you even start on a electrical problem without a wiring diagram? But here we go again I hope you luck on this because you will need it.

Hi,
Try a new sparkplug first might help just like my lawnmower.
mc_harley