Pony from HD with just 15 hours dies in the middle of cutting grass.

[preventec47]

I have a year old low end 42in TroyBuilt rider with a 500cc Briggs engine and it suddenly died today and I am trying to trouble shoot it. I believe most likely is is one of the safety
feature implementations that is shutting the mower down. I think it must be electrical since I am just going along and then it dies just like I turned the switch off. We know the
gas is good. The starter works good as I tried over and over to re crank it. So what are the safety features to check ? 1. rider has to be in seat. 2. the blade cannot be engaged.
3. It must be in neutral and not forward or reverse and I now know that there is a solenoid in the carb which controls gas flow but I dont know whether the no electrical charge condition
is fuel flow on or fuel flow off. I am one month past the Troy-built warranty but the Briggs engine supposedly has a 24 month warranty. I would like to bypass all the safety mechanisms to test the motor and see if it is getting spark etc. Is there a list somewhere in a repair manual that describes the testing/bypassing of the safety features ?

 

[bertsmobile1]

Get a can of carb cleaner and spray a little down the plug hole then crank the engine
If the engine fires then the ignition is good and you have a fuel supply problem.
Do the same but this time down the carb throat
If it fires then the inlet & exhaust valves are working .
IF it did not fire in either of these tests then remove the blower housing and pull the small wire off he coil
Measure it, it should be open circuit when the key is in a run position and ground when the key is turned off.

If the two carb cleaner tests both fired & ran for a few seconds then pull the solenoid off the carburettor .
The little pin should be fully out when the ignition is off and fully retracted when the key is on.

Let us know how you go.

 

[tom3]

First thing I'd do is a good visual check of the wiring and connectors of those safety circuits. Pretty new mower for a switch to go bad. Maybe something unplugged or a wire rubbed bare?

 

[whtlion]

I owned a troybilt pony for 10 years until recently purchased a cub cadet, I had issues with mine as well and found out I needed to adjust the vales, the first time one of the studs the valve sets on worked itself out, last year i started have the same issues as you went as far as replacing the carb and adding a fuel filter. check to see if the vent tube from the fuel is not clogged - insects like them