I apologize if I have double posted. I'm unable to find my original post.
It may be time to just get rid of this mower, but I was hoping to finish out the year with it. So hopefully someone has an idea on what's going on.
Anyways, my wife was cutting the grass last week and ran out of gas. She put gas in it and couldn't get it re-started. I then tried to get it started and had no luck. Turns out I wasn't getting any spark. So I removed the magneto or armature (whatever it's called) and cleaned the part that passes by the magnet on the flywheel. Also cleaned the magnet on the flywheel. Still no spark, even when I took the grounding wire off. So I ordered a new magneto. After putting that on the new magneto and also putting in new plugs I was now getting a nice spark. So I thought I had it licked. Well - the dang thing still wouldn't start. Spun over easily and seemed to have good compression. Was getting fuel. After monkeying with it for quite a while, my wife says, what can do you keep the gas in? I pointed to it and she said "I didn't use that can, I used this one". "This one" just happened to have kerosene in it. Ugh....Well at least I now know what the problem is. So I emptied the kerosene out of the system, cleaned the tank, fuel lines, removed the carb and cleaned that. Basically got all the kerosene out of the system. Then I filled it with gas and it fired right up. Thing ran great for about 20 minutes. Then it started backfiring and losing power. Finally it quit and wouldn't start again. Back into the garage and when I checked for spark I have no spark on both plugs again.
I'm at a loss. Is it possible my new replacement magneto has gone bad? I'm wondering if it was backfiring because initially one of the plugs wasn't getting any spark and it finally quit when both stopped getting spark. I plan on taking it apart again, but before I do I was wondering if anyone might have an idea.
It's a 17 HP B&S twin cylinder. It doesn't have points or condenser or any of that stuff. Just the magneto to generate the spark. It's at least 12 years old so maybe I need to break down and buy something else. But as I mentioned I was hoping to finish out this year with it.
Thanks,
Bill
It may be time to just get rid of this mower, but I was hoping to finish out the year with it. So hopefully someone has an idea on what's going on.
Anyways, my wife was cutting the grass last week and ran out of gas. She put gas in it and couldn't get it re-started. I then tried to get it started and had no luck. Turns out I wasn't getting any spark. So I removed the magneto or armature (whatever it's called) and cleaned the part that passes by the magnet on the flywheel. Also cleaned the magnet on the flywheel. Still no spark, even when I took the grounding wire off. So I ordered a new magneto. After putting that on the new magneto and also putting in new plugs I was now getting a nice spark. So I thought I had it licked. Well - the dang thing still wouldn't start. Spun over easily and seemed to have good compression. Was getting fuel. After monkeying with it for quite a while, my wife says, what can do you keep the gas in? I pointed to it and she said "I didn't use that can, I used this one". "This one" just happened to have kerosene in it. Ugh....Well at least I now know what the problem is. So I emptied the kerosene out of the system, cleaned the tank, fuel lines, removed the carb and cleaned that. Basically got all the kerosene out of the system. Then I filled it with gas and it fired right up. Thing ran great for about 20 minutes. Then it started backfiring and losing power. Finally it quit and wouldn't start again. Back into the garage and when I checked for spark I have no spark on both plugs again.
I'm at a loss. Is it possible my new replacement magneto has gone bad? I'm wondering if it was backfiring because initially one of the plugs wasn't getting any spark and it finally quit when both stopped getting spark. I plan on taking it apart again, but before I do I was wondering if anyone might have an idea.
It's a 17 HP B&S twin cylinder. It doesn't have points or condenser or any of that stuff. Just the magneto to generate the spark. It's at least 12 years old so maybe I need to break down and buy something else. But as I mentioned I was hoping to finish out this year with it.
Thanks,
Bill