Governor issues on Briggs & Stratton

[danieljamestravis]

I have a Craftsman YT3000 with a Briggs and Stratton 331877 2371 G5 engine (21 HP ride-on). It was running fine until I was wrapping up my last mow and was about 2 minutes from shutting down and heading to the garage when suddenly the RPMs spiked a ton. I lowered the throttle to about 1/2 or maybe even 1/3 (just above the normal idle) where the mower sounded to be back at normal full operating RPMs to finish, but it’s surging still a bit up and down. I assumed it was a carb issue and replaced that along with the fuel and air filters to rule out those. I also checked the linkage and springs to the throttle and governor and those seem to be working appropriately but I’m no small engine expert. I can hold the governor arm over and the engine idles perfectly, but as soon as I let go, the RPMs are a bit too high when set to idle, and forget about putting the throttle in run, it sounds like she’s gonna blow up. I also checked to make sure the governor setting was correct and hadn’t slipped or anything of the sort which seems to be fine to me. Anything easy left for me to check before taking the motor apart and inspecting / replacing the governor gear and or flyweights or something else within? The governor shaft sticking out of the motor connected to the governor arm seems to be able to rotate about 20 degrees to “reset” it so that seemed okay to me but is it normal for this governor shaft to be able to move in and out of the motor by about 1/16 of an inch (if I had to guess), or could that be an indication something broke loose inside? I tried looking through old posts on similar makes and models but wasn’t able to find an exact solution for my issue here. Thanks in advance!

 

[bertsmobile1]

Sounds like you governor had self destructed
Usually the ACR goes first and take the governor with it
Slight chance that the governor arm has slipped on the shaft so you can try resetting it .
If still the same then it is engine out & apart
Running ungoverned for a minute or so usually causes the con rod to break so you did well to catch it

 

[danieljamestravis]

Sounds like you governor had self destructed
Usually the ACR goes first and take the governor with it
Slight chance that the governor arm has slipped on the shaft so you can try resetting it .
If still the same then it is engine out & apart
Running ungoverned for a minute or so usually causes the con rod to break so you did well to catch it

Thanks @bertsmobile1 . I did try to reset the governor arm and check the spring settings at least 5 separate times thinking I’ve must have done something wrong each time but I’m confident it’s not that now also with your backing here. Since the governor shaft is moving in and out of the block by around 1/16 of an inch is that also an indication of an internal failure or is that normal? Also in your opinion what is a fair price to have the governor internals replaced by a professional?

I’m not sure I have all the tools, skill set, or frankly anymore time and patience to fix this governor issue after diagnosing and fixing the steering linkage, starter, carburetor, and now identifying this over the last few months. Trying to decide whether or not I can junk this thing because this latest fix maybe cost prohibitive and convince my wife to let me buy something new, but hard to let this one go also after putting so much TLC into this thing recently.