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So, besides the battery what could the problem be? It did run out of gas and I left it out overnight with the key on the "on" position. So that's why the battery went dead. The display works though so there is some power in the Diehard battery. I have also tried starting it with one of those starter packs like you use to start a car that has a dead battery. I guess I could check the plugs but don't know why they'd both go bad all at once. What would be in between the battery and the spark plugs?

About 10 times a year I get called out to a no start after the mower had run out of fuel
Most of them had forgotten to turn the blades off

The lawn mowing attachment is not even on the mower right now. I have a grading attachment on it The motor does turn a little bit when I try to start it.

So is the starter turning the engine or not?

Scrubcadet10 said:

So is the starter turning the engine or not?

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Yes, a little bit but very little. Not much more than a single rotation at a time. And this is with the battery pack on it. Otherwise it does not turn at all and just makes clicking noises.

Sounds like the classic valves out adjustment or a fail ACR (Automatic Compression Release) on the camshaft. Need the engine info but if it 310000 or 330000 series Briggs either of these is likely.

StarTech said:

Sounds like the classic valves out adjustment or a fail ACR (Automatic Compression Release) on the camshaft. Need the engine info but if it 310000 or 330000 series Briggs either of these is likely.

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I had similar hard-to-crank issues after a few years with my LT1000 917.275371 purchased in 2005. I would keep the battery on a tender, adjusted the valves a few times, had battery checked for performance under load a few times.

Anyway, while mowing one day the engine lost oil and seized, and I bought a new engine online and installed it, and have not had any cranking issues since. So I think there was an internal issue on that original engine.

To insure engine to turning freely. Remove the spark plugs, this should allow the engine to turn freely with the battery pack. Turn the key and let the engine turn over several times, listen any odd nosies, watch the spark plug holes any excessive gas squirting out. Does it have to much oil? Check the spark plug wire with a timing light or other device to insure the engine is firing. Need this engine to turn freely and check for spark.

No fire at spark plug means one of those pesky safety switchs is faulty sear, in gear, clutch not depressed.

Cusser said:

I had similar hard-to-crank issues after a few years with my LT1000 917.275371 purchased in 2005. I would keep the battery on a tender, adjusted the valves a few times, had battery checked for performance under load a few times.

Anyway, while mowing one day the engine lost oil and seized, and I bought a new engine online and installed it, and have not had any cranking issues since. So I think there was an internal issue on that original engine.

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Well this is why the oil should check at least at every refuel. The Briggs 210000, 280000, 310000, and 330000 al use the same style head gasket that is prone to blowing between cylinder and push galley cause excessive oil usage without even smoking. The 310000 and 330000 are the worst at doing this which why I leak down tests on nearly every one when they come into the shop.

tagpop said:

No fire at spark plug means one of those pesky safety switchs is faulty sear, in gear, clutch not depressed.

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Would the starter still turn the engine in that circumstance?

(the engine is a Kohler by the way, not Briggs)

If all the safety switches are working the engine should turn free and fast with plugs removed. If it does not turn at all its a faulty switch, broken wire, loose wire or bad key switch or solenoid or fuse etc. My twin cylinder engine will be seized sometimes when I first crank it in the spring and I burnt up 2 solenoids before I realized engine was not turning enough (the coil was just a little to close to the flywheel and rusted, mower is only 30 years old). A wiring diagram is helpful if you have an electric type problem.

Starting citcuit
Fuse => key switch =>pto switch =>parking brake switch =>solenoid

Check your battery's ground cable. Clean where it is attached to the frame.

cupboy said:

So, besides the battery what could the problem be? It did run out of gas and I left it out overnight with the key on the "on" position. So that's why the battery went dead. The display works though so there is some power in the Diehard battery. I have also tried starting it with one of those starter packs like you use to start a car that has a dead battery. I guess I could check the plugs but don't know why they'd both go bad all at once. What would be in between the battery and the spark plugs?

Click to expand...

cupboy said:

So, besides the battery what could the problem be? It did run out of gas and I left it out overnight with the key on the "on" position. So that's why the battery went dead. The display works though so there is some power in the Diehard battery. I have also tried starting it with one of those starter packs like you use to start a car that has a dead battery. I guess I could check the plugs but don't know why they'd both go bad all at once. What would be in between the battery and the spark plugs?

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Try to jump it with a good battery or put another battery in it. My guess is your jump pack is no charged all the way or it’s battery is on its way out too. If it was running the night before a dead battery won’t effect the plugs or valves.

Very good chance that Star Tech's answer, "Sounds like the classic valves out adjustment or a fail ACR (Automatic Compression Release) on the camshaft." is the correct answer but, you also need to follow "tag pop's" recommendation to make sure that it will turn over properly, if at all. Pop the plug and turn it over. If it does turn over easily, go back to Star Tech's answer....... Adjust the valves or replace the cam. That's about all I got. I too have had the valve/cam problem. At first, all I needed to do was adjust the valves. After a while of doing that occasionally, it got to where even that wasn't enough, thus the camshaft. I'm not a small engine repair person but, I do all my own work. Take it or leave it. I'm not an expert. Good luck.

Cupboy - any resolution to your problem? I haven't seen any updates from you since Sunday! If it's still not resolved, please let us know. I have a few suggestions to try.

Had that problem, one of 2 things connected to the battery, one the cables are corroded, lessen for a sparing sound when you turn the key to start, the other is the starter armature bearings worn causing the armature to the field winding making it turn slowly.

Easy test, take your hands and rotate the motor through the compression strokes. If it then starts it is the compression release mechanism that is broke. If you are a bit handy there is a YouTube video on how to replace it. I ran my JD L111 for ten years like that. Last year I got tired of that and bought a JD E130.

I agree with the person who said pull the plugs and try to crank. Could be hydro-locked if fuel filled the cylinder. Also pull the oil stick and check for gas dilution and odor.

Cusser said:

I had similar hard-to-crank issues after a few years with my LT1000 917.275371 purchased in 2005. I would keep the battery on a tender, adjusted the valves a few times, had battery checked for performance under load a few times.

Anyway, while mowing one day the engine lost oil and seized, and I bought a new engine online and installed it, and have not had any cranking issues since. So I think there was an internal issue on that original engine.

Click to expand...

Who is the Gal Mrs.cusser?

It's been raining so I haven't gotten back to this. Maybe tomorrow.

Battery is probably bad,
Disconnect it and see if you can jumper cable start from car battery

LOAD test the battery.

slomo

wow.. your battery is dead.. charge it or replace it. A battery pack jump starter's wires are too thin to carry the current to turn a starter when the battery is completely dead.

I've seen it a hundred times, person swears the battery is good, people tell him to pull plugs, check valves.. just put a new battery on it, if you do not want to spend 50% on a new battery to test it out, get yourself a good quality 2awg or 0awg jumper cables, hook it to the car with the car running, attach it to the tractor, let it try to charge the tractors battery for at least 15 minutes and then try to crank it over..

Portable jumpstarters are not for completly dead batteries, unless you got one of the 900amp cranking power ones for like 300$+. Also, if the battery in the tractor did in fact go 100% dead, chances are there is now a short between the internal cells, this alone can draw up to 250 amps from your jump pack. those batteries are not designed to go below 70% charge at 0% few if any can be recovered. Personally I would just replace the battery, they are less then 50$ at walmart.

mmoffitt said:

Who is the Gal Mrs.cusser?

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Yep, Mrs. Cusser, a few years ago. Cannot remember the occasion for champagne in summertime...

Removed the spark plugs and it turns real good this way. Attached the spark plugs to the two cables and checked for a spark and there is none. Should there be a spark? And if so, why would there not be one? Same with both spark plugs.

cupboy said:

Removed the spark plugs and it turns real good this way. Attached the spark plugs to the two cables and checked for a spark and there is none. Should there be a spark? And if so, why would there not be one? Same with both spark plugs.

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The plugs have to be grounded to the engine block for them to spark.

Oh. I will have to check on how to do that.

update: I found an article on this but it's way too complicated. I'll just give the local shop a call and have them come and pick it up next week sometime and they can fix it. I give up! Wow. Serious things can happen just by simply running out of gas... If I had it to do over I never would have bought any lawn equipment and just used a service. I'd come out ahead financially.

update 2: Went to Ace and bought a new battery. Installed it and it started right up. That Diehard battery died pretty easily after all. Now if I can find the receipt I'll check into the one year warranty. I know I have had it less than a year (well I hope so... just my luck I missed it by a week... I will start looking for the receipt).

update 3: Found the receipt. Unfortunately I bought it in July of 2018. Seemed like just last year.

I had an automotive battery that was less than a week out of warranty, parts place offered nothing. I went caddy-corner and bought a Walmart battery for $20 less than the parts store. Both were made by Johnson Controls, which has like 85% of USA battery market.

StarTech said:

Sounds like the classic valves out adjustment or a fail ACR (Automatic Compression Release) on the camshaft. Need the engine info but if it 310000 or 330000 series Briggs either of these is likely.

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a) battery can be damaged overenight. check voltage at starter when cranking, if under 9volts, chase issue. b) hydrolocked c) can not start till motor whirls about 300 rpm, anything less generates no spark by magnet induction on spark moduals.

batteries are not rocket science any more. they are pretty much the same no matter who makes them.. and no lead acid battery deep cycle or standard car is designed to be 100% drained ever. IF it is drained 100% and somehow you manage to get it to take a charge at best it will be working at 70-80% and will fail first time the temperature fails under 32f or 0c..

Lawn mower batteries especially do not improve at all with price, a long tie ago I stopped buying the expensive crappy ones from the dealerships and the auto parts store and just got the same crappy ones with a different lable from walmart, I'm pretty sure they are like 30 to 35$ tops there.. at least last summer they were.. who knows nowadays with 2x4 up over 500% in price and plywood up 600%+ maybe batteries are next.. lol

mitchstein443 said:

batteries are not rocket science any more. they are pretty much the same no matter who makes them.. and no lead acid battery deep cycle or standard car is designed to be 100% drained ever. IF it is drained 100% and somehow you manage to get it to take a charge at best it will be working at 70-80% and will fail first time the temperature fails under 32f or 0c..

Lawn mower batteries especially do not improve at all with price, a long tie ago I stopped buying the expensive crappy ones from the dealerships and the auto parts store and just got the same crappy ones with a different lable from walmart, I'm pretty sure they are like 30 to 35$ tops there.. at least last summer they were.. who knows nowadays with 2x4 up over 500% in price and plywood up 600%+ maybe batteries are next.. lol

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Goes like this Mitch
Every battery that comes off the end of the line is subjected to better than a dozen tests
The BEST ones get diverted to be branded with the premium brand label.
From then on they get different labels for progressively cheaper brands as the quality declines.
Now the crunch comes with demand.
Because people are cheap & nasty, the demand for the premium brand is the lowest and the demand for the cheapest brand is the highest.
So when Walmart puts in an order for 1,000,000 grade -10 batteries the factory often will not have enough junk batteries to fill the order,
Thus they might get 400,000 -10 grade , 200,000 -9 grade , 100,000 -8 grade , 100,000 -7 grade etc etc till the order is filled using all of the lowest grade batteries available at the time .
I did QC for Simmsmetal down here who ran 6 battery factories so know exactly how it works
In a run of 10,000 batteries designed to be all +1 grade the bulk would come in at +1 to -5 , so the battery brands that get -10 batteries rarely got a full order of -10 grade batteries because we never had enough of them.
Thus you could luck in a -5 quality battery at a - 10 grade price but a +1 grade battery was always a + 1

cupboy said:

update 2: Went to Ace and bought a new battery. Installed it and it started right up. That Diehard battery died pretty easily after all. Now if I can find the receipt I'll check into the one year warranty. I know I have had it less than a year (well I hope so... just my luck I missed it by a week... I will start looking for the receipt).

update 3: Found the receipt. Unfortunately I bought it in July of 2018. Seemed like just last year.

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update 4: now the stupid thing is back to not starting again. It's not a battery problem this time. Seems to act like it's not getting any fuel. I did replace the spark plugs today. I had put fresh fuel in it the day before. Didn't make any difference. What else could it be?

bertsmobile1 said:

Goes like this Mitch
Every battery that comes off the end of the line is subjected to better than a dozen tests
The BEST ones get diverted to be branded with the premium brand label.
From then on they get different labels for progressively cheaper brands as the quality declines.
Now the crunch comes with demand.
Because people are cheap & nasty, the demand for the premium brand is the lowest and the demand for the cheapest brand is the highest.
So when Walmart puts in an order for 1,000,000 grade -10 batteries the factory often will not have enough junk batteries to fill the order,
Thus they might get 400,000 -10 grade , 200,000 -9 grade , 100,000 -8 grade , 100,000 -7 grade etc etc till the order is filled using all of the lowest grade batteries available at the time .
I did QC for Simmsmetal down here who ran 6 battery factories so know exactly how it works
In a run of 10,000 batteries designed to be all +1 grade the bulk would come in at +1 to -5 , so the battery brands that get -10 batteries rarely got a full order of -10 grade batteries because we never had enough of them.
Thus you could luck in a -5 quality battery at a - 10 grade price but a +1 grade battery was always a + 1

Click to expand...

as far as battery quality goes.. the shittest batteries on the market around here are good enough to last 3-5 years.. As an atomotive mechanic we have always told our customers (for 30+ years now) that if your battery is 5 years old and still work, good for you..
At the local lawn mower repair shop they tell thier customers 3 years..

Now I only use the cheapest batteries in my lawn mowers/snow blowers etc etc. and have had the same experience with every one of them. On the lawn mower I use daily to go around my property, it is started probably 25 to 30 times a day and the battery last about 5-6 years.. (it's a 2000 dy4000 craftsman, 22hp single banger). The starter needs to be replaced twice to each battery.

On my 1989 Yard machine briggs 18hp single banger, which is only used maybe 8 or 9 times a year mostly in the fall because I use it with a homemade leaf collector trailer for the fall leaes, so one in the spring then rest in the fall, the battery last 3 years, it has a .5 amp trickle charger and th battery is left hooked up all year round.

On my 1972 craftsman with a briggs opposed twin, the battery lasts forever.. (over 10 years old now), but it is on a quick disconnect, gets a full 1 amp charge the day before the tractor show here in town every year and is used maybe 3 or 4 times a year.

and on my john deere 400 it has a 10 year old car battery type 26 that fit my camaro starts every time, trickle charged at .5 amp used for snow plowing and spreading gravel, nice hydrolic machine that I rebuilt in 2009 from a barn find.

My 1979 camaro has a 10 year battery, it is started about 4x's a year and sits on a trickle charger..

Then there is my generator, with a 10+ year old 100ah deep cycle used for priming and starting it, it auto starts the gen ever 3 days and runs for 45 minutes automatically..

My 25 10ah deep cycle batteries o my 5KW solar array are discharged to about 50% and recharged to 100% at least once daily all year round, they also are walmarts cheapest 100ah deepcycle batteries they last at least 3 and 6 years tops.

Now, here's the difference between each of these batteries..

the lawn mower batteries have very thin, wide mesh matted lead platting, the car batteries have thicker lead plating on thinner mesh matting, the electrolite is identical in both.

The deep cycle batteries have much much thicker plates of lead on much thinner several layered fiber mesh, the electrolite is about 4x's more acidic then the car and mower batteries. They also put out much more toxic gas when overcharged then the mower and car batteries.

as far as how they are manufactured and graded, I never heard of simmsmetal, but at exide thats not how it is done. My cousin is a QC linesman supervisor for them, he said they get a pass or fail grade. If they pass they go on to different channels for labling for different companies, Walmart, pep boys, autozone, lowes, homedepot etc etc etc are all made on the same line and pass the same quality test.. then there are the "optima" style batteries which are made on a different line.. If they fail they get returned for recycling..

WHen I asked him about the grade of batteries 1-10 he smirked and said, who fed you that pile of malarky, batteries either pass or fail they are not graded..

As far as the answer to the guys problem..

Again none of this is rocket science..

If it will not crank, then either the battery is dead, the solenoid is bad, a wire is bad (corroded or loose or broken), the key switch is bad, the starter is bad.

The best way to test all these things is with a voltage meter.

Test voltage at the battery terminals, it should be 11.9-12.8v, if it's lower then 11.9 probably won't crank, charge or replace the battery. If it's over 12.8v then you do not have a 12v battery in the tractor, replace it..

If it's between 11.9 and 12.8v try to crank the engine, if the voltage drops below 8.5 the battery is weak, charge try again test again if it still fails replace.

If the voltage does not change at all, locate the solenoid, test the voltage at the battery side of the solenoid with the key in the run position, it should be the sae or within .1 volt as it is at the battery, if it is 0 volts - - - move your ground test lead to the negative terminal and test agin, if still at 0 volts replace/clean and/or tighten the positive battery wire. If once changing the ground back to the negative battery post it now show voltage the solenoid clean/replace and/or tighten the negative cable.

Test again..

Once you have 12 volts at the input side of the solenoid, turn the key to the start position and test at the other post of the solenoid, if you do not have 12 volts there, I usually just replace the solenoid since a universal 1 is oly like 10-20 dollars, and retest if it still doesn't get 12 volts look for a problem with the wiring to and from the keyswitch and the keyswitch itself.

Assuing you now have 12 volts on both sides of the solenoid.

turn the key to the start position and test for 12 volts at the starter if 12 volts are there, replace the starter.

If there isn't 12 volts there, clean/replace/tighten the solenoid to starter wire.

If the engine tries to crank, but goes very slowly, make sure the voltage never drops below 7 volts if it does, the battery is weak or one of the wires/connection is bad.. Just clean all of them, you should do that anyway.. test again.. still under 7 volts replace the battery.

Some engines can become vapor locked..

Pull the plugs, reinstall them, try to start if it cranks noral may even start, run until warm and shut off let it cool down, then try to restart, if it des not crank, could be vapor locked, could be a sticking valve, or a number of other engine issues.

cupboy said:

update 4: now the stupid thing is back to not starting again. It's not a battery problem this time. Seems to act like it's not getting any fuel. I did replace the spark plugs today. I had put fresh fuel in it the day before. Didn't make any difference. What else could it be?

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Does the engine crank properly as in turning over now?

Was the new battery load tested? I hear it's new but new doesn't mean good all the time.

Did you verify good fuel flow AT the carb? Pull the fuel line and drain into a glass jar. Should have good fuel flow there.

Is there a fuel pump on this engine?

Finally got it started with the help of some Valvoline starting fluid from an auto parts store. I had to keep pumping the choke knob to keep it from stalling while it was outputting purple smoke. It cleared up after a minute or two. Now it's running fine. I'm going to keep it running for 10 minutes or so to get the battery charged back up. The previous attempted starts had to drain it down a bit.

I also plan to change the oil but need to go get a filter. Sears part #24606. Well, that may be a useless number now. Another part number is 52-050-02S.

Well instead I placed an online order since I'm in no hurry. Pack of two yellow (pretty) Kohler oil filters and a Kohler fuel filter 24 050 13 .

Turns out the fuel line was clogged. Flushed it out and it started up no problem. Sorry for the long delay in posting the solution.