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My riding mower experienced power loss then died and will not restart. I change spark plugs regularly, clean air filter after each mowing, and use premium gas. Oil and filter plus fuel filter just changed also. 23 HP Briggs - 6 years old - have had puff of white smoke during last mowing season.

First thing to do is to remove the spark plugs and connect them back to the wires and ground the plug to the engine and crank to see if you actually have spark. If that works OK, then try dumping a small amount of gas into the carb, and see if it will run on that. If it starts and then dies you have a fuel delivery problem. Which could be plugged jets, fuel solenoid not working, or fuel pump quit, etc.

I will dissagree with Illengine, probably for the very first time.
Fist thing I would do is pull the plugs , shove a dowel down the plug hole & check both pistons are moving up & down, turning the engine by hand.
After that off with the rocker boxes and check the valves are moving & the valve lash is set properly.

If they are all OK then I would proceed as per Illengines suggestions.
Reason being that if it has dropped a push rod or broken a conrod you are not making things worse by cranking the engine more than you have to.

Thinking a bit more, probably would start with an oil level check as low oil will cause a drop off in power due to overheating.
Once the engine has stopped the oil level switch will prevent it starting if the oil level is too low.

Bert I wouldn't say we are disagreeing. I just didn't start there because it quit while running, and if it dropped a valve or broke a rod, he will have internal damage that may or may not be repairable. I just started with the easy to check stuff first before diving in and going internal.

ILENGINE said:

Bert I wouldn't say we are disagreeing. I just didn't start there because it quit while running, and if it dropped a valve or broke a rod, he will have internal damage that may or may not be repairable. I just started with the easy to check stuff first before diving in and going internal.

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OK, I will go with that.
The most usual "loss of power" I get down here is a dropped pushrod.
Probably because none of the dealers except JD actually check the valve lash.
Then most wont take their mower to the JD dealer because they charge 2 to 3 times as much for a service as the other dealers.
I gave up trying to explain why this is so, it just does not get home.