Export thread

Kohler SV540S will turn but not run,changed everything new, head gasket, lapped the valves and gapped, carburetor,air filter,fuel filter,still not run. Shows 65 psi compression. Could it be timing problem.Have not opened engine itself. What else should I check.It was warm then suddenly stops at the middle of mowing. Will appreciate any help.

Does it have spark.

I have not checked it yet,but I will today as well as the coil. I should have checked it before ,but I did changed it to a new one gapped at .03 inch,do I have to worry about the compression at 65 psi.thanks.

.003” air gap is TOO small. Should be .010”. This could easily be the cause of nonstarting. 65 psi could be the result of ACR working properly.

Rivets said:

.003” air gap is TOO small. Should be .010”. This could easily be the cause of nonstarting. 65 psi could be the result of ACR working properly.

Click to expand...

Looks like he said 30 thousands not 3 thousands, but as you stated 10 thousandths would be the correct air gap.

Blame my mistake on resting today not working. Sorry!!

Spark plug air gap was set to .03 inch. I will reset it then to .010 inch, sorry for the confusion. Will work on the spark plug and coil today,and will come back after. So no need to worry about compression value. Thanks.

NO. First you said you set the magneto air gap at .030”, now you say you set the spark plug gap at.030”. The magneto air gap should be .010” and the plug gap should be .030”.

ok,so spark plug gap should be .03 hundredths of an inch, and the ignition coil gap(magneto) should be .010 thousandths of an inch, to clear the confusion or .01 hundreths of an inch. Clear to me,got it.

Checked ignition coil, both the primary and secondary pole does not show any resistance at all with multimeter, so I presumed no spark at all to burn the mixture. Waiting for the parts and see if it runs. Thank you all for the helpful comments.

If we’ve (the techs on this site) said it once we’ve said it a thousand times, TODAYS COILS CAN NOT BE TESTED USING A MULTI METER, You need special equipment to test them, due to Hall Effect triggers inside the coil. Easiest way for the DIY guts to test a coil is to disconnect the kill wire from a properly mounted coil and then check for spark. No spark, bad coil. Spark, you’ve got other problems.

Well relied on you tube clips,anyway changed the coil,showed spark,reassembled it, then it cranked and run, run it for a few minutes, but when tried to restart,went back to same problem, just crank not going to life. Put starting fluid in the carburetor it runs for few seconds. Could it be fuel problem or carburetor. Appreciate your input.

If it started with starting fluid, you have a fuel problem. I like to check/clean the entire fuel system.

I was able to run it, it is the fuel solenoid that solved it,and the coil, but it was not smooth as I would expect, it surges a little bit, I replaced a new carburetor though not OEM, how can I resolve it. Thanks for the help.

Rebuild your original carb and reinstall it. Non OEM stuff is a crap shoot.