Engine will crank once than stop, Or keep cranking but not fire

JuiceUncool said:

I am at real loss with this,
Troy-Built
Model Number: 12AN693G118

We got this mower for free from my husbands boss, he said it worked fine, just needed to be jumped to start because the battery was shot.
OK, We replaced the battery, fuel lines, cleaned the carb, new belts and blades, full tune up. Started up last year and mowed the lawn 3 times tops.

This year: Go to start the mower, and it cranks once about 1/2 way then stops. So far this year we've replaced the ignition switch, fuel line again, starter and solenoid. We have to jump it just for it to even move, but when we do jump it at first it will crank a few times and sometimes start, but as soon as we let go of the key it dies, try it again and it just spins, try it again and it goes back to cranking ab 1/2 way then stops.

Seems to only fire up when we spray starter fluid into the carb.
When it spins halfway and stops it smokes out the carb a bit and makes a "bloop" sound, sometimes spraying the fluid back up out of the carb.

Anybody have any thoughts?

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Tinkerer200 said:

When asking an engine question it always helps to post the make and model number of the engine. I can send you a service Manual for your engine IF you like. Address below, put in proper format and remind me engine model number and what you want.

Might start out by being sure you have fresh fuel in the mower, remove the carb float bowel and be sure it doesn't have contaminates in it, water, crude. Might also remove the spark plug and run the starter to be sure there isn't excess fuel in the cylinder. IF you do that, make sure to move the spark plug wire as far away from the plug hole as you can because if there is gas in there it will spray out and the spark may result in fire.

Walt Conner
wconner5 at frontier dot com

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