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- test lawnmower coil
- The charging circuit on todays small engines consists of the flywheel which has a set of magnets underneath it that when spinning rotate around a coil that is mounted to the engine by four bolts at least, so when engine is running the magnets rotate around the coil, generating dc current which flows through two wires coming from underneath flywheel, one is for lights and one is a direct charging wire with a diode inside wire on most briggs,kohler is a little different.
- A good spring tune-up on your briggs, kohler, honda or tecumseh should involve a oil change, a new sparkplug and draining any of last years gas out and replacing it with fresh fuel.Also it is a good idea to clean the carburetor bowl out, especially if the engine is over two years old, assuming you have a carb bowl type carburetor, which 90 percent of todays engines do.FRESH FUEL, GOOD SPARK AND CLEAN AIR FILTER and you should be on your way to a good start this spring,engine wise.If your 20 or 22 inch walmart special pushmower wont start or wont stay running after your tune-up, its time for a new carb, since briggs is putting plastic carbs on these without any adjustment,about a 21 to 23 dollar replacement item, my troubleshooting guide shows you how to replace, assuming you have a briggs engine, however if you have the sears special with the tecumseh engine, 9 times out of ten it will have some bowl type carb, thats almost neccessary to clean out every season.Actually the nut that holds the bowl on is part of the main jet,and will have two small pin holes that seem to stop up from season to season.I have actually spent ten minutes cleaning the bowl out on one, that the guy had been pulling on all day, ran like a new one, something he could have just as easily done.Check belts, blades, and pulleys for wear.Most of the time an uneven cutt by your mower is worn blades or a bad bearing in a pulley that turns the blades, one side cutts higher than the other.One way to check deck pulley bearings is to grasp the blade from underneath deck and try to move it up and down,there should be no play or very little play in blade,if however you can shake the blade up and down with a lot of play, you need to replace bearings or quill assembly as they are called,since running it this way will give you an uneven cutt, one side higher than the other or leaving a streak of grass in the middle.Batteries, if you get more than a years usuage out of the normal walmart or auto parts store mower batteries consider yourself lucky.One more note on batteries, if you have a electric clutch on your mower to engage the blades, you need a good battery for it to operate properly,you cant just jump the mower off ,have a dead battery and expect the electric clutch to work, the alternator on the small engine will not keep it engaged without a good hot battery.
- Carburetor solonoids have replaced the fuel bowl nut on a lot of todays engines,from kohler,briggs tecumseh, kawasaki, onan and most of the others.The purpose is to shut fuel off from intake manifold when ignition key is switched to off position.The carb solonoid consists of two wires,a power wire and a ground wire.The solonoid itself controls a pin that retracts from the bottom of the carb fuel jet when ignition is turned on allowing fuel into carb and intake manifold,sometimes you can hear it click right before you turn ignition to engage starter.If you dont hear a click and engine wont start, then the solonoid could be bad.One way to check is to disconnect wires from bottom of solonoid, since they ususally plug into it, it is relatively simple to remove them and then unscrew solonoid from bottom of bowl, it helps if you discconnect fuel line from carb first to avoid gas spillage,after you have removed solonoid, plug wires back in to it and switch ignition on,you should see pin retract, if you dont then the solonoid is bad.To fix replace solonoid, or snip pin off even with threads and re insert solonoid as a bypass trick.One important note is that if you have a completely discharged battery and you jump engine off and take cables off the engine will possibly go dead, since solonoid needs electricity to work.For somephotos go to http://pass.smallenginetrblshtng.com and see safety switches.
- Todays small briggs an stranton engines have a pull rope mechanism a lot simpler than the old style engines of yesteryear.Flywheel cap must be removed before attempting to install new rope,usually there are from four to five bolts holding it on,usually three eights in size.Once you have cap off you will see the inside recoil disc,that is mounted with a bolt in the center which you will not have to take loose,if you try to spin the recoil disc around you will see either two plastic or metal starter pawls or dogs as most people refer to them.Sometimes they will break,causing you to replace them.They fly out and catch the starter cup on the flywheel, thus spinning the engine.To replace starter rope you will have to spin disc in a counterclockwise fashion all the way, until it feels tightly wound making sure you align the hole in the disc with the hole in the flywheel cap.You will have to hold disc in this fashion without it unwinding.I usually use a pair of vice grips or any means to wedge disc to keep it wound up while installing the pullrope,since you will need both hands free for this.Try to size the length of your new rope with whats left of the old before you install.With everything line up,disc wound up,feed new rope through hole in flywheel cover and intostarter disc hole.You may need to burn end of rope with a lighter to get rid of any frazzles that hinder this proccess,if flywheel cover hole and starter disc hole are aligned it should be simple enough.Once rope is through starter disc hole,tie a good knot and pull from outside flywheel cover,release the vice grips or wedge,letting disc unwind,thus winding rope up,before you do this its a good idea to have your rubber handle installed on opposite end of rope,to keep rope from winding all the way in to starter disc.You can see a photo on this by going to my trouble shooting guide at http://pass.smallenginetrblshtng.com and going to contents.Older style engines, such as some of the briggs 5 hp tillers and go carts,and still some of the pushmowers are different in having a spring that must be removed and wound up before being installed, thats room for another article.
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