Pull Cord pulls Easy with no resistance?

[wade308]

Question? I have a new Briggs & Stratton push mower self propelled purchased in April. The mower has been running fine until last week when my son used it. He said it was very difficult to pull in an attempt to get it started. After a few very hard pulls, he said he heard something snap. Now the cord pulls very easy with zero resistance and it appears that the pull cord system is not engaging the motor and drive system to turn the motor over to get it started. Any thoughts on whet could be the problem?

Also, any thoughts on what made the mower so difficult to pull or turn over in the first place?

Thank you for the input.

 

[Scrubcadet10]

post the engine model number, should be stamped into the area around the spark plug. recoil replacements are usually pretty easy.
It could be the plastic pawls that engage the flywheel cup broke.

 

[bertsmobile1]

On new Briggs with a gravity feed tank fuel can run into the engine if the float fails
Fuel of course is not compressable so forcing the pston to compress a liquid will cause some thing to give
On electric starts it is generally the head gasket
On pull starts it is usually the starter

BEcause this is an American mower you could also have a bent blade jambed up under the mower, which stopped the engine turning .

 

[tom3]

Or take it back to the dealer, either get it fixed or a new replacement?

 

[wade308]

post the engine model number, should be stamped into the area around the spark plug. recoil replacements are usually pretty easy.

Model Number: 12A-A15W793 and this number was right under it as well...: CMXGMAM1-125501

 

[Born2Mow]

On new Briggs with a gravity feed tank fuel can run into the engine if the float fails
Fuel of course is not compressable so forcing the piston to compress a liquid will cause some thing to give

+1. This is common on mowers where the fuel is ABOVE the carb. You MUST turn the fuel valve OFF after each use. If it has an "automatic" fuel shut off, then install a manual version so that you can be sure the fuel is really OFF.

Easy to check for this situation. Remove the dip stick and check the oil level. If it seems higher than normal, then the extra fluid is gasoline. Besides the engine repairs, you'll also need to change your engine oil.

 

[Scrubcadet10]

 

[logert gogert]

On new Briggs with a gravity feed tank fuel can run into the engine if the float fails
Fuel of course is not compressable so forcing the pston to compress a liquid will cause some thing to give
On electric starts it is generally the head gasket
On pull starts it is usually the starter

BEcause this is an American mower you could also have a bent blade jambed up under the mower, which stopped the engine turning .

what does bent blade have to do with american mowers???

 

[bertsmobile1]

The only country on the planet that decided that swing back blades were too dangerous to use on a mower is the USA
The rest of the planet uses swing back blades so when you run over something hard, the cutting tip swigs back harmlessly ( for the mower not necessarily the blade ) out of the way.
SO you can not bend a blade so bad that it jambs into the deck preventing the engine rotating .
You also never bend a PTO shaft
And the airflow is better under the deck so you get a cleaner cut and better clipping removal
And because the entire blade is usually only 2mm thick it uses less power and cuts cleaner
And because the momentum is in the blade carrier not the blade it does not bog down in long grass .
You never see an Australian or EU resident here complaining that their Honda leaves a trail of uncut grass or trail of clippings unless they are using the USA model & not the rest of the world model.
And because the tip does the cutting, you only replace the tips which are about 100g of high quality & expensive boron steel in place of having to buy 1.5 kg of the same steel most of which is never actually used to cut the grass so is a wasted resource and then there is the logistics of shipping big lumps of steel all over the country for no good reason other than to make the steel mills rich .

 

[wade308]

+1. This is common on mowers where the fuel is ABOVE the carb. You MUST turn the fuel valve OFF after each use. If it has an "automatic" fuel shut off, then install a manual version so that you can be sure the fuel is really OFF.

Easy to check for this situation. Remove the dip stick and check the oil level. If it seems higher than normal, then the extra fluid is gasoline. Besides the engine repairs, you'll also need to change your engine oil.

VERY HELPFUL...... Thank you