MTD engine with no compression.

StarTech

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Well that is a first for me to see. But as I always say there is a first time for everything and nothing is impossible. It also points to a possible starting problem once you get it back together.

Many years ago I had numerous new electronic desktop calculators adding wrong. The OEM say it was impossible so had to prove it to them with a set of serial number and test set of numbers. When I had the info I got a tech support guy to pull an unit withing that serial range and had over the phone enter my test number set. Sure enough he got the same wrong answers. Well it cause me to change nearly 100 cpu chips once they found the programming error. The company that I work was one of a few that received the bulk of those bad cpu chips.

Another time the boss had shut down a computer during EOM operations and didn't tell me or anybody else. We discovered the results three weeks later when the system lost three weeks of data during the normal EOM. What was strange the system showed data before the EOM but it was no in the regular data files. We hunted and a hunted for it. We final just had accept that the data was lost and the accounting then had spend the next two months re-enterng all the lost data while still doing normal day to day operations. Those three weeks of backups were of bad data.

If he had only told us the next morning after he did the shut down ie pulled the plug. We could saved him two months of overtime for four accountants plus multiple trips to Birmingham and my overtime plus my frayed nerves.
 
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BrianSki

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It also points to a possible starting problem once you get it back together.
Yes, back to the original problem. Most likely dirty carb, and since it is off already...
 

BrianSki

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Just an FYI it fired right up. Carburetor did not look to bad either. Thx for the help.
 

Rivets

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Believe it or not I’ve seen it and many other thing holding valves open. I think the weirdest one is a small machine screw, about 10 X 28X 1/4” holding the exhaust valve open. Have no idea how it got passed the intake valve and into the exhaust port with the screw head against the valve face, threads pointing toward the cylinder. Glad to hear you got it running.
 

Forest#2

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Good to hear you got it going.
Another weird one I could not believe.
I received a free old model Horse tiller with the later model Tecumseh engine with no carb on the engine. It had the 2-3 inch intake manifold steel pipe still attached to the head.
Sometime later I gently pulled on the start rope and no compression. Motor oil was very clean. I pulled the spark plug and slowly pulled the rope and a piece of white plastic appeared in the spark plug hole. I started pulling on the piece of plastic with needle nose pliers as I slowly turned the engine and it just kept coming. A large white kitchen trash bag was finally fed out. o_Oo_OThe engine then cranked with compression and I gave it a prime into the head and the engine promised to run.:)
Later installed a old used Tecumseh carb and got a good run.
The head had never been off of the engine. Someone had stuck/stuffed the plastic bag into the manifold pipe to keep insects out and it got sucked into the cylinder as the engine cranked.
 
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jviews12

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remove plug, does it spin. do valves go up and down when turning over engine?
 

TobyU

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My cousin brought a MTD snow blower to me. He said he got it with no compression. The engine has the number 270-WJ. It looks like it has seen very little use. Oil looks almost new. I have never messed with a MTD engine. Not sure if there are any problems that are common to these? I was going to start with pulling the valve cover and see what the rockers look like. I did not find a parts listing for a 270-WJ a much more common engine was a 270-WU. It does not look like this engine has a compression release. I give it a pull and the engine just free spins. Anything to look for?
I haven't read the whole thread but of course the first thing you do is to remove the spark plug and look inside to see if the piston is going up and down.. I haven't seen any of these engines with any internal catastrophic failures but it's always possible.
If the piston is going up and down then you should pop off the valve cover and you'll probably find something up with the valves.
You can usually fix whatever needs to be fixed without replacing the head but these heads are pretty readily available from what I have found and pretty easy to bolt on.
 

TobyU

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Just an FYI it fired right up. Carburetor did not look to bad either. Thx for the help.
Cool, upon jumping to the latest I see you found the straw and they're holding the valve open and everything is good to go now. Congratulations. It's a shame you had to take the head off but oh well it still will be a good machine for you.
 
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