Why didn't someone here suggest shorting accross the solenoid and jumping directly to the starter? Because in doing so you miss number 4 at the top of the procedure. When trouble shooting electrical problems, you are looking for the cause of the problem. By not following a procedure, you are assuming certain parts and connections are good, without testing them. Taking short cuts when electrical trouble shooting, has lead many people to spend money, when they don't have to. You made the assumption that the first O'Reillys was test properly and were correct. This assumption caused you to spend more time trying to check parts with a bad battery and then having to go have it check for a second time. Cpurvis is correct, you should have gotten a third opinion. People at these part stores are there to sell product. Even though I have been retired for 10 years, it still bugs me when people ask for help and don't follow them through. My 50+ years of experience have taught me (and I really forced this on my students) that when dealing with electricity you must go slow and verify everything. The guys at the O'Reillys just through it on their tester, dialed it up to a certain amperage and read the screen. Did they ask you if the battery was fully charge? It should have been, both times. Did they check in the manual for the battery size and use the same amperage draw at each place? Did anyone check to see if you had the right size battery for your engine? If this is a twin cylinder engine, I would be recommending a battery with a minimum of 375 CCA. These are things I would have suggested, when you posted back the results of my procedure. Sorry you were offended, just showing you my side of the coin, where you are getting info for free, plus we are trying to save members $$$' believe it or not.
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Starter, Solenoid, Safety Switch, or something else?
- Thread starter LarryJohnson
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Export threadLarryJohnson
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Just wanted to update the thread. After replacing the starter, which I visually confired had broken magnets, the engine still wouldn't turn over. After further research I learned that these B&S OHV engines can build up so much compression if the valves are not properly gapped that the battery/starter will not spin the engine. (I think I explained that correctly.) That was exactly the problem in my case, plus the damaged starter. That was my first valve adjustment. Still haven't gotten it running yet, but at least the motor is turning as it should.
bertsmobile1
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It goes like this.
Techs on this site rarely chime in if another person they know to be competiant has already started a response .
Reason being is we all have different ways of doing the same thing usually in a different order & it just gets confusing .
If you had done what you were asked to do in the first post then all of the techs would have followed what you were doing & known where you were at.
But you chose to ignore the advice , adding some information about a ewe-tube video that most of us have no idea about and then expected a diagnosis result without reporting what happened when you did the test that were given to you IN THE VERY FIRST POST ON THE VERY FIRST DAY
Funny enough we spend most of our days actually diagnosysing and repairing mowers not looking at ewe-fool videos, most of which are junk uploaded by shaved monkeys with a massivily inflated idea of their own self importance who finally worked out how to turn on a video camera.
While there are some good & useful video channel out there, if you have enough time to produce a good repair channel then you are not doing much in the workshop and there has to be a reason for that.
Techs on this site rarely chime in if another person they know to be competiant has already started a response .
Reason being is we all have different ways of doing the same thing usually in a different order & it just gets confusing .
If you had done what you were asked to do in the first post then all of the techs would have followed what you were doing & known where you were at.
But you chose to ignore the advice , adding some information about a ewe-tube video that most of us have no idea about and then expected a diagnosis result without reporting what happened when you did the test that were given to you IN THE VERY FIRST POST ON THE VERY FIRST DAY
Funny enough we spend most of our days actually diagnosysing and repairing mowers not looking at ewe-fool videos, most of which are junk uploaded by shaved monkeys with a massivily inflated idea of their own self importance who finally worked out how to turn on a video camera.
While there are some good & useful video channel out there, if you have enough time to produce a good repair channel then you are not doing much in the workshop and there has to be a reason for that.
bertsmobile1
Lawn Royalty
- Joined
- Nov 29, 2014
- Threads
- 65
- Messages
- 24,995
Thank you for the follow up.
It is good for people who would rather read through what other people did than ask their own questions.
You have no idea how many people come into the workshop having spent
$ 150 battery
$ 45 solenoid
$ 150 Starter
$ 35 ignition switch
when all they needed to buy was a $ 5.00 rocker gasket.
Rule of thumb
If the engine has a seperate starter solenoid, the engine also has a built in decompressor.
This will be sensitive to valve lash.
The prime symptom of too much valve lash is turning 1.5 revolutions, stopping, then the starter squealing ( if battery is good ) then another 1.5 revolution at infinitum till they burn out the starter or flatten the battery.
That is a much different description to what people usually give _starter won't turn over engine. and is instantly identifiable as ether decompression or a hydraulic lock.
Ewe-fool videos will show you how to jump with a bigger battery, but very few will show you how to adjust the valve lash properly.
And again, if you had followed through on what you were asked to do it would have become apparent.
Valve lash is checked at around 200 hours ( around 4 years ) intervals on most engines except Commands which have hydraulic lifters.
It is good for people who would rather read through what other people did than ask their own questions.
You have no idea how many people come into the workshop having spent
$ 150 battery
$ 45 solenoid
$ 150 Starter
$ 35 ignition switch
when all they needed to buy was a $ 5.00 rocker gasket.
Rule of thumb
If the engine has a seperate starter solenoid, the engine also has a built in decompressor.
This will be sensitive to valve lash.
The prime symptom of too much valve lash is turning 1.5 revolutions, stopping, then the starter squealing ( if battery is good ) then another 1.5 revolution at infinitum till they burn out the starter or flatten the battery.
That is a much different description to what people usually give _starter won't turn over engine. and is instantly identifiable as ether decompression or a hydraulic lock.
Ewe-fool videos will show you how to jump with a bigger battery, but very few will show you how to adjust the valve lash properly.
And again, if you had followed through on what you were asked to do it would have become apparent.
Valve lash is checked at around 200 hours ( around 4 years ) intervals on most engines except Commands which have hydraulic lifters.