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New guy, same Briggs surge (bs)...

#1

C

Cub Wanter

Okay, entire story, here we go.. Craftsman lt2000 of 15 years with a Briggs intek I bought (new) 3 years ago, ran beautifully up till last week when it decided to just not start.

I got right to diagnosing, worked my way to the carb when I borrowed a friend's chinese ebay carb.. finally it started (hooray) so I took my Ruixing unit carefully apart and cleaned, in which 3 years of 100% gas yielded a new looking everything in the inside...

Upon reassembly I plugged in the fuel solenoid by itself and discovered it faulted (as borat would say "great success") So no problem... I order a new solenoid and gasket for installation.

NOW.... my issue is a tough cold start (like a solid 10 Mississippis to fire up) and aggravating surge when I push throttle to "blade" level, with continued surge with the blade engaged.

I've gone nearly nanners over this nonsense and am ready to set this thing on fire and make smores off it. Then piss on the ashes... Only detail I can "help" with diagnoses is if I remove the air filter and choke the intake with my hand for a few seconds, it clears up the surge for a bit. Everything seems to be in order, what could I possibly be missing?

Any tips or info would be greatly appreciated.. Thank you


#2

B

bertsmobile1

As for hard starting , remove the air filter housing and check that the choke is fully closed .
As for the surging, check that the carb is not leaking air around the manifold by saturating it with WD 40 or similar from a trigger pack not a spray can and manipulate the governor to make the engine speed up & back off, look for white smoke in the exhaust .


#3

C

Cub Wanter

Mmkay... the starting is with the throttle all the way down, it just stays so hot and muggy where I live (Knox TN) that before all this, I could go crank it once a week for the weekly cut, and it would fire up after like 3 seconds... same conditions I'm sittin at the 10... so I know something is up... driving me bonkers

Sprayed around the carb... I got slight hesitation nowhere aside from spraying over the throttle shaft? not the choke one... I don't want to overreact yet but... there's literally never been anything there to "seal" it... how is it possible to mess up


#4

R

Richard Milhous

Cub Wanter said:
Mmkay... the starting is with the throttle all the way down, it just stays so hot and muggy where I live (Knox TN) that before all this, I could go crank it once a week for the weekly cut, and it would fire up after like 3 seconds... same conditions I'm sittin at the 10... so I know something is up...

Sprayed around the carb... I got slight hesitation nowhere aside from spraying over the throttle shaft? not the choke one... I don't want to overreact yet but... there's literally never been anything there to "seal" it... how is it possible to mess up
Click to expand...
He's talking about the connection between the carburetor and intake. If this is not airtight, the engine will suck raw air through the leak instead of fuel-air through the carb. On car engines I use motor oil for this test, but on car engines you can attach a vacuum gauge to see the change. WD40 I guess would do better at getting sucked into the manifold and burned than at sealing the joint, hence you watch for smoke. It will NOT hurt your engine, unless you spend twenty minutes emptying a whole can of WD40 on it.

I don't know what a "trigger pack" is, or any reason why you wouldn't use a spray can.


#5

C

Cub Wanter

Richard Milhous said:
He's talking about the connection between the carburetor and intake. If this is not airtight, the engine will suck raw air through the leak instead of fuel-air through the carb. On car engines I use motor oil for this test, but on car engines you can attach a vacuum gauge to see the change. WD40 I guess would do better at getting sucked into the manifold and burned than at sealing the joint, hence you watch for smoke. It will NOT hurt your engine, unless you spend twenty minutes emptying a whole can of WD40 on it.

I don't know what a "trigger pack" is, or any reason why you wouldn't use a spray can.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I meant carb, intake and all... I got no change in idle except going over the shaft... but I'm having a hard time accepting taking the carb off and cleaning it messed up a part I never removed... then again I'm having a hard time accepting Briggs is still in business... this has been a battle for the last week

Edit: Oh, and I think trigger pack is like when you buy WD in the gallon jugs that comes with the squirt bottle


#6

R

Richard Milhous

Going over the... throttle? shaft? From the outside?

Messing up a part you never removed? Hell yeah. You don't know what's going on if you've never removed it. The slightest hint of disturbance, or mere coincidence, can change something. Especially if some desperado like me tinkered with it before to make it run.


#7

C

Cub Wanter

Yeah, I feel ya... but the briggs/carb diagram tells me there was no reason to go squrreling around in there.. I was in it for the still new, ungrateful jets


#8

B

bertsmobile1

Richard Milhous said:
He's talking about the connection between the carburetor and intake. If this is not airtight, the engine will suck raw air through the leak instead of fuel-air through the carb. On car engines I use motor oil for this test, but on car engines you can attach a vacuum gauge to see the change. WD40 I guess would do better at getting sucked into the manifold and burned than at sealing the joint, hence you watch for smoke. It will NOT hurt your engine, unless you spend twenty minutes emptying a whole can of WD40 on it.

I don't know what a "trigger pack" is, or any reason why you wouldn't use a spray can.
Click to expand...
You don't use a spray can because the propellent is very volatile
SO you got your nose in there nice and close then a stray spark ignites the propellent.
WHoof, no eyebrows or even worse.
On car engines it is not so much of a problem because the front guards keep you well away from the engine but on a mower you could very well be hunched over the entire engine even more so if the hood is still on the mower
So out of curosity what do you lot call the container with a trigger that you pull to cause spray to come out the other end ?
Pump pack ?

A little bit of a leak around the throttle shaft is usual as here is no seal in there
However a big leak shows excessive wear so the carb is now scrap metal


#9

Scrubcadet10

Scrubcadet10

Cub Wanter said:
Yeah, I meant carb, intake and all... I got no change in idle except going over the shaft... but I'm having a hard time accepting taking the carb off and cleaning it messed up a part I never removed... then again I'm having a hard time accepting Briggs is still in business... this has been a battle for the last week

Edit: Oh, and I think trigger pack is like when you buy WD in the gallon jugs that comes with the squirt bottle
Click to expand...
1630547120227.png


#10

R

Richard Milhous

bertsmobile1 said:
You don't use a spray can because the propellent is very volatile
SO you got your nose in there nice and close then a stray spark ignites the propellent.
WHoof, no eyebrows or even worse.
Click to expand...
BANG! oops... I've never used anything but motor oil, never thought of that.


#11

C

Cub Wanter

bertsmobile1 said:
A little bit of a leak around the throttle shaft is usual as here is no seal in there
However a big leak shows excessive wear so the carb is now scrap metal
Click to expand...

Is 3 years of use really excessive wear time?

This is why I'm having a hard time taking briggs seriously right now... shoot, at this point they should just give me a new carb since we're still in "could be anything" territory... all initially from an early faulty fuel solenoid


#12

B

bertsmobile1

Wear is some thing that can not be eliminated nor can rates be standardized.
Just too many variables like the type of dust around your place & the size of the dust particles.
How long you let the grass grow before cutting & how much you cut .
My shop is on a river flat and the dust is very very fine and mostly clay like so it will neverwear a carb.
five hundred yards up the road the dust is sandstone so very agressive .

Some carbs can be a right royal PIA to clean
There are times I need to give them better than 20 x 1/2cycles in the ultrasonic cleaner before the crud that is causing the surging finally gets dislodged
Others that are surging so bad it causes them to backfire through the carb & muffler have come good after a 15 minute scrub .
Even worse are the carbs with fixed pilot jets as you have to remove the blanking plugs in order to back flush the primary air passageways.
Then you get clots who poke their air duster with the compressor set at 120 PSi output into the air inlet which blasts any crud in there so hard up the air passage you have to drill it out .


#13

R

Richard Milhous

Three years "shouldn't" be a lot of wear. Unless it's crap to begin with, or you're brush hogging forty acres, or running without an air filter, or leaving it in the weather all winter, or...

Stuff they make now won't last the way stuff made twenty years ago did. It's the main reason I try to keep the old junk running.


#14

C

Cub Wanter

Cleaned again... just for the heck of it... and I like a good joke....

Now it won't start at all.... Anyone know how one may contact Briggs? I wanna see if they can point me to a small engine company.


#15

S

slomo

Cub Wanter said:
Cleaned again... just for the heck of it... and I like a good joke....

Now it won't start at all.... Anyone know how one may contact Briggs? I wanna see if they can point me to a small engine company.
Click to expand...
At 15 y/o mower with a 3 y/o engine. Doubt Briggs can help as everything is long out of any warranty.

What did you clean and HOW did you do it?

You are not trying to fix much on this. Sounds like you want to talk to someone on the phone about it only.


#16

S

slomo

Cub Wanter said:
if I remove the air filter and choke the intake with my hand for a few seconds, it clears up the surge for a bit.
Click to expand...
You still have a dirty carb or impeded fuel flow from the tank. Engine is running lean causing your surge issue. It wants more fuel as you found out by covering the carb with your hand.

Remove the fuel tank. Flush it out then blow out with compressed air and EYE PROTECTION.

Replace the 15+ year old fuel lines and filter if you have one.

Perform valve adjustment

Clean the engine block and cooling fins YEARLY. Remove all the dirt and oil as in spotless.

Clean, replace or rebuild your OEM Briggs carb.


#17

R

Richard Milhous

Bad gas?

*Ethanol* gas???

I just read an account by a Soviet general from 1945 claiming they mixed captured Polish vodka into their gasoline to stretch the supply. Good thing those engines only had to last a few more months...


#18

C

Cub Wanter

slomo said:
Doubt Briggs can help as everything is long out of any warranty.

Sounds like you want to talk to someone on the phone about it only.
Click to expand...

No mate, I don't expect briggs to do anything, they can't even build an engine/carb to go beyond 3 years...

Hoping the guy on the phone can tell me who CAN build an engine. That's about the nicest thing they could do for me right now.

Already cleaned/rebuilt carb like 6 times... it went from "I don't feel like it" to "nah"


#19

C

Cub Wanter

Alright gang... suddenly decided to start running... still got that surge... gonna try to sea foam it out

Really all that's left to try


#20

S

slomo

Take it to a mower shop if you are not going to troubleshoot and fix it. Maybe the Briggs guy can fix it over the phone.


#21

C

Cub Wanter

slomo said:
Take it to a mower shop if you are not going to troubleshoot and fix it. Maybe the Briggs guy can fix it over the phone.
Click to expand...

I've found the problem... done everything right to fix it, there's only so many ways you can clean a carburetor... so far I've found 3 ways to mount it.... none of which this pos... I mean, BS is responding...

The Briggs guy wasn't easy to get ahold of, I faxed him my pager number where he then contacted me with a can on a string... I explained my situation and when I got to the word "carburetor" he had a breakdown and started crying... apologizing profusely... he tells me "I can't help you sir, nobody here can"... I tell him it's okay and there's still time to make things right, I start to ask if he knows anyone that can cut me a sweet deal on a kohler, he stutters "O, o, okay, yo, you mean an engine? I, I hear they have working telephones over there" when I hear a knock on his door and it opening, he starts to scream and I lose connection, someone cut the can string.

He essentially didn't help me at all.


#22

Scrubcadet10

Scrubcadet10

Engage the blades, does the surging stop?


#23

S

slomo

Scrubcadet10 said:
Engage the blades, does the surging stop?
Click to expand...
Think ol' Cub Wanter is a fisherman guys.

We provide exact instructions on how to fix his mower. He replies back with a pizza recipe.


#24

C

Cub Wanter

Scrubcadet10 said:
Engage the blades, does the surging stop?
Click to expand...

Nope... it only stops when I go back down to about 1/2 throttle, sometimes I can barely put on choke and it smooths out, but this doesn't seem to work every time.


#25

C

Cub Wanter

slomo said:
Think ol' Cub Wanter is a fisherman guys.

We provide exact instructions on how to fix his mower. He replies back with a pizza recipe.
Click to expand...

Got no patience to fish... I'm done after like 20 minutes of sitting

"clean the carburetor, you're old dirty gas from sitting is clogging the whole thing"

"I've been running 100% in it i'ts whole life, at that it's sat no later than 2 weeks without getting some action, plus this all started with a bad solenoid"

"you have exact instructions"

"I take the bread, I add the sauce, I sprinkle cheese, if you please, I cut the onions, I cut the peppers, this will be good, for leftovers, put it in the oven, for 20 minutes, while I sit back, and drink some guinness."

I so didn't do that.... oh wait


#26

S

slomo

Cub Wanter said:
sometimes I can barely put on choke and it smooths out, but this doesn't seem to work every time.
Click to expand...
Dirty carb - again.


#27

S

slomo

Cub Wanter said:
Got no patience to fish... I'm done after like 20 minutes of sitting

"clean the carburetor, you're old dirty gas from sitting is clogging the whole thing"

"I've been running 100% in it i'ts whole life, at that it's sat no later than 2 weeks without getting some action"

"you have exact instructions"

"I take the bread, I add the sauce, I sprinkle cheese, if you please, I cut the onions, I cut the peppers, this will be good, for leftovers, put it in the oven, for 20 minutes, while I sit back, and drink some guinness."

I so didn't do that.... oh wait
Click to expand...
Still nothing about fixing your mower engine.
1630762321917.png


#28

B

bertsmobile1

If choking by hand makes it run better then the engine is not getting enough fuel
You have already eliminated manifold leaks so that basically only leaves a clogged carb
Occasinally very excessive inlet valve lash , a head gasket blown to atmosphere or even a loose intake valve seat can cause surging .
But they are rare and all have other symptoms much bigger than surging.
In all carbs the secondary air passages are are vital as they are where the air supply to the emulsion tube comes from and without a proper flow you won't get enough fuel out the venturi .


#29

Scrubcadet10

Scrubcadet10

What about a sensitive governor?


#30

R

Richard Milhous

Cub Wanter said:
The Briggs guy wasn't easy to get ahold of, I faxed him my pager number where he then contacted me with a can on a string... I explained my situation and when I got to the word "carburetor" he had a breakdown and started crying... apologizing profusely... he tells me "I can't help you sir, nobody here can"... I tell him it's okay and there's still time to make things right, I start to ask if he knows anyone that can cut me a sweet deal on a kohler, he stutters "O, o, okay, yo, you mean an engine? I, I hear they have working telephones over there" when I hear a knock on his door and it opening, he starts to scream and I lose connection, someone cut the can string.

He essentially didn't help me at all
Click to expand...

Ha, you got better help than I did.


#31

C

CaptFerd

Is this the V twin motor your working on or single cylinder?


#32

Scrubcadet10

Scrubcadet10

This is my Go To when i can't seem to get a carb clean with spray, wire tool and compressed air.

Berryman® Non-Chlorinated Chem-Dip® Professional Parts Cleaner

www.berrymanproducts.com www.berrymanproducts.com
it says 15-30 minutes bet i usually let the carb soak for 24 hours.


#33

Scrubcadet10

Scrubcadet10

slomo said:
Think about what you just typed.
Click to expand...
V-Twin or Single?
CaptFerd said:
Is this the V twin motor your working on or single cylinder?
Click to expand...


#34

C

CaptFerd

Scrubcadet10 said:
V-Twin or Single?
Click to expand...
Ok Ive thought about it educate me. Think hard yourself my friend. Depending on witch of the 2 depends on the answer for this persons problem. Not sure whats going on here.


#35

C

Cub Wanter

CaptFerd said:
Ok Ive thought about it educate me. Think hard yourself my friend. Depending on witch of the 2 depends on the answer for this persons problem. Not sure whats going on here.
Click to expand...

It's a single mate... was running fine one minute... I shut it down to move junk out of my way, I get back in.and nothing...

My crackhead self decided to take the carb off only to discover the solenoid went bad... so I reassemble, reinstall. and the surges have been haunting me since... I've took this stupid thing apart at least 5 times for cleaning (cleaning I'm thinking it doesn't even need).. but it's just refusing to work with me


#36

C

Cub Wanter

Scrubcadet10 said:
This is my Go To when i can't seem to get a carb clean with spray, wire tool and compressed air.

Berryman® Non-Chlorinated Chem-Dip® Professional Parts Cleaner

www.berrymanproducts.com www.berrymanproducts.com
it says 15-30 minutes bet i usually let the carb soak for 24 hours.
Click to expand...

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU... something like this is my next step


#37

S

slomo

CaptFerd said:
Ok Ive thought about it educate me. Think hard yourself my friend. Depending on witch of the 2 depends on the answer for this persons problem. Not sure whats going on here.
Click to expand...
I reread what I typed LOL. I was WRONG for what I typed to CaptFerd. Single or twin wasn't stated by the OP. My apologies to CaptFerd. She's a single cylinder per Cub wanter.


#38

T

Telesis

When you were cleaning the 'ungrateful jets', did you just use a fluid/spray and/or did you physically run a wire/microdrill/torchtip cleaner through the main jet up through the bottom of the emulsion tube? If you did that then just ignore this post!

I just fixed a surge problem with my 33" walk-behind mower (8.5HP B&S I/C single cylinder L-head) and it took removing the emulsion tube twice. Engine would smooth out by choking it a bit at WOT and ran smooth at low speed so likely a fuel delivery problem. First time I did a visual inspection and ran carb cleaner through it(emulsion tube). I saw what appeared to be plenty of light up through the center main jet...so I stopped there. Put it back together and no change. Removed again and this time very gingerly ran a torch tip cleaner up through and spray cleaned it. Put it back together and it runs like a top. Absolutely no hunting or surge anywhere in the throttle range. Problem fixed. It doesn't take much of a restriction to cause surging! I just can't believe my Lyin' Eyes!

FWIW....


#39

B

bertsmobile1

Scrubcadet10 said:
What about a sensitive governor?
Click to expand...
Any damage to the governor mechanism makes their response slow


#40

J

Joed756

It is imperative that you don't mix up the order, S'mores first, THEN pissing.


#41

mitchstein443

mitchstein443

only 2 things will cause a surge like you are saying.. most likely bad fuel mixture.. less likely but possible, loose or damaged crank key where the crank is just off enough of proper alingent to set the timing way to far advanced or retarded..

So let's address the fuel...

it's a briggs... goto ebay buy a 20$ carb, put it on see if it stops surging.. If it does bam you fixed the problem for 20 bucks and a carb swap. if it doesn't... don't use motr oil or wd40.. USE CARB CLEANER to spray around the carb, manifold etc.. if it surges or drops rpms you have a vacum leak, gasket etc.. If you are retarded enough to burn your eyebrows off, don't even try to fix anything just take it to a pro.. I've bee fixing gas engines in cars, trucks, small engines for over 40 years and always used carb claner or brake cleaner to test for leaks, never once lite an engine on fire or brned an eyebrow... jesus the warning you greenies put out there nowadays.. what's next a wrench with knuckle guards?!?

If not and the 20$ carb didn't fix it.. then check the crank key, it may be not severed all the way, making it hard to strat and surge.. replace..

Other thing which should have been checked already but I didn't see mentioned... this is a 12+ year old deal.. so maybe replace the fuel line could be decomposing from thei nside and cloggin up the fuel filter, replace the filter as well if you have not done so yet...

If none of those things fix the problem... check compression...

What I never understood is why anyone would rebuild a carb when you can amazon or ebay one for 20$, I've probably installed over 50 of those cheapies on customers tractors and maybe 2 went bad within a year or came doa..


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