Man, I just spent this evening fighting the same problem with an old MTD rider I picked up last summer with a 12.5hp briggs L head 28T707 1154-E1.
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Didn't get it to start. Got spark, fuel, I can spin the engine by hand. I adjusted the choke and throttle. The starter spins the engine real nice with the sparkplug pulled out. The battery has plenty of juice and yup I hooked the jumper cables up to the truck. I guess the mower did crank kind of slow in the summer too, but today when I decided to start it I just can't seem get it to spin fast enough to fire. The starter gets hung up on the compression stroke can't get more than a couple of revolutions at a time. I'm pretty sure I put valvoline max life 5w-30 in it when I got it because that's just what I use in the car/had on the shelf. It looks like new starter will cost almost as much as I paid for the whole mower:thumbdown:
I wonder if I could stick a pull cord on it?