Urban legend?

B

Bagster

Member
I've always heard that a push mower with a Briggs engine will not start with the blade removed. I suppose I could go out, pull the blade, and try it myself, but it's too darn hot. Is this a tall tale, or is there some truth in it?
 
Bagster said:
I've always heard that a push mower with a Briggs engine will not start with the blade removed. I suppose I could go out, pull the blade, and try it myself, but it's too darn hot. Is this a tall tale, or is there some truth in it?
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Well in general, any push mower would be hard to start. Push mower engine's have an aluminum flywheel, and they employ the blade for the
extra weight.
 
Bagster said:
I've always heard that a push mower with a Briggs engine will not start with the blade removed. I suppose I could go out, pull the blade, and try it myself, but it's too darn hot. Is this a tall tale, or is there some truth in it?
Click to expand...


It's a tall tale, There's no truth to it. I just started mine today without a blade. I had heard the same thing and I was changing blades and tried it and they will start.
 
Ric said:
It's a tall tale, There's no truth to it. I just started mine today without a blade. I had heard the same thing and I was changing blades and tried it and they will start.
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Yeah, you caught me! I was lying....
 
Fish said:
Yeah, you caught me! I was lying....
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Oh, I don't think I caught anyone lying. I had the mower tipped on its side and was removing a blade adapter because it broke in the process of removing the blade, I put the mower back on its wheels long enough to go to the shop for the new adapter so before I replaced the adapter I decided to run the mower to lubricate things so with that I know the Briggs will run without the blade. So apparently like I said it's a tall tale.
 
I've started one after someone hit something bent blade and sheared flywheel key. Replaced key but was waiting on blade. I started it to make sure it ran after new key. It did run but sounded like it needed the blade to run 100%
 
If that is the case how does one run that is a horizontal shaft that has no blade? Depending on the application it is used many times these motors will sit and run under no load for long periods of time.
 
Some of the newer mowers that's got an aluminum flywheel and a self-propelled system driving off the crankshaft might be hard to start without a blade. The older mowers that had a cast iron flywheel didn't matter if it had a blade attached or not.
 
We started every single one of them in shop class in high school on the bench after they were gone through. Briggs starts all their engines to test them. How do they do it?
 
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