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I am renovating a used and abused bed redefiner that came with a GX240. The entire machine, including the engine, was filthy. It had an oil leak at the bottom of the crankcase. I had to take the engine off anyway to do some welding on the frame, and decided to clean the carb while I was waiting for gaskets. The engine would start with a pull rope easily before I worked on it. NOW it won't start at all and in fact won't even pop with starter fluid. It feels normal when pulling, no noise, decent compression. I put an inline spark plug tester on it and showed a spark.

While changing the crankcase gasket out I ended up pulling the counterweight gear and shaft out, as well as the camshaft gear and shaft. I needed to do this to be able to fully clean the sump. I was very careful replacing these re. indexing the marks on both gears. I also took the valve poppets out and cleaned them and made sure they went back in the holes they came out of.

I'd appreciate any suggestions. I am thinking it is not anything to do with the oil safety switch since it does show a spark if the ignition switch is on. I feel like even if I had messed up the carb it seems like it would still at least pop with starter fluid. I do have a compression tester and will hook it up tomorrow; I am not sure what I should be reading since it does have a compression release. I guess it's also possible that the spark tester is showing a spark but I didn't actually test the plug by grounding it. Any ideas? Could something have moved in the valves that would cause this? I haven't had the valve cover off yet but will do that tomorrow also.

TIA!

A possibility is that when it went back together, the flywheel nut was not torqued enough and you have sheared the flywheel key.

Fish said:

A possibility is that when it went back together, the flywheel nut was not torqued enough and you have sheared the flywheel key.

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Same thinking here.
here's a good bit of Information on the internals reassembly to make sure you got everything right

Thanks for the replies and for the link. I did not have the flywheel off, and didn't remove the piston or crank. As I am new at this, if there was a problem with the woodruff key, I would still be showing spark (with a tester) but the spark wouldn't be occurring at the proper time?

louky1150 said:

As I am new at this, if there was a problem with the woodruff key, I would still be showing spark (with a tester) but the spark wouldn't be occurring at the proper time?

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That is correct, you would have spark, just not at the correct time.
Of course, there aren't any rules that say a flywheel key can't shear when you pull the rope... only Murphy's Law...

Thanks! I will try to pull the flywheel today to examine.

I decided to take the valve cover off before pulling the flywheel, this is what I found. A combination of being happy and embarrassed both. Apparently when the lifters fell out when I had the camshaft out, the rocker arms shifted since I had turned the engine on it's side. I put these back and adjusted the valves. The engine started on the first pull and runs fine. I did a compression test after I got everything together and got 90psi. I want to thank those who responded to my question.

louky1150 said:

I decided to take the valve cover off before pulling the flywheel, this is what I found. A combination of being happy and embarrassed both. Apparently when the lifters fell out when I had the camshaft out, the rocker arms shifted since I had turned the engine on it's side. I put these back and adjusted the valves. The engine started on the first pull and runs fine. I did a compression test after I got everything together and got 90psi. I want to thank those who responded to my question.

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Glad it worked out! Things like this are such a great learning tool for idjits like me.