Craftsman 22hp kohler command mower loss of power when pto is on

mwhitnell

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My mower loses power when I switch on the pto. when I cut sort of heavy grass the mower bogs down, like the governor is not switching on. I checked the governor and and checked the adjustment, but I see nothing not working. I was wondering if I cann just hook the throttle to the carb and bypass the governor.
 

ILENGINE

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I was wondering if I cann just hook the throttle to the carb and bypass the governor.
NO. The governor needs to be in place to both control engine speed based on load and to also prevent overspeed. I suspect that your engine is running on one cylinder only, which for most people is hard to detect.
 

mwhitnell

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NO. The governor needs to be in place to both control engine speed based on load and to also prevent overspeed. I suspect that your engine is running on one cylinder only, which for most people is hard to detect.
You know that was my first thought...I removed plug wires one at a time, one killed the engine, the other kept it running. Good catch.
 
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Tiger Small Engine

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You know that was my first thought...I removed plug wires one at a time, one killed the engine, the other kept it running. Good catch.
If the engine running on one cylinder was your first thought, why would bypassing the governor make it better? Address the issue with why only one cylinder is running and do NOT mess with the governor.
 

Auto Doc's

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Hello M.,

Hands off of the governor.

The governor only has one job and that is to keep the engine from exceeding high RPM and blowing itself apart.

Simple test:

Use a spray bottle with water and start them engine. Let it run for a minute, then spray each exhaust pipe to see which one burns the water off quickly. That will identify the side not working. The cylinder not burning the water off the exhaust pipe has a problem.

From there, disconnect the coil wire and use a spark plug to check for spark while cranking.

If you have good spark, that means possibly the plug is bad for that cylinder, swap plugs and try again.

Let us know what you find and we can go from there
 
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