replacement coils are identical to original coil.....spark plug looks fine, and works fine when coil is replaced. i ordered a replacement (used original) from ebay, and will replace it before tying another coil. is changing the flywheel a big job? any tips? thanks, Rick
Changing the flywheel to another identical one is easy peasy. Just one center bolt on the flywheel, then knock around the edge with light taps from a hammer while pulling up on flywheel. BUT....are you sure you lost spark? A good coil will produce a spark across a plug just by hand-turning the flywheel rather rapidly clockwise (looking from top). Clamp the engine brake off at the handlebar using vise-grips, or other way to keep the bail against the handlebar. Disconnect the kill wire from the coil. Take the sparkplug out and with it connected to the spark-plug wire coming from coil, hold it tight against cylinder fins, spin flywheel and you should see spark. If you get spark, then reconnect kill wire and repeat. You should STILL get spark. The kill only kills when the brake engages. You can see this function, unless your machine is old enough to be before kill switch/brake stuff. In any case, you should test for spark visually, by viewing the sparkplug. Older pre-compliance models have a separate on-off switch to ground the kill wire. Same principle. First test with kill wire disconnected, then connected, then test both on and off positions of switch to be sure it is working. Off should produce no spark.
The flywheel (its finned to act as fan blades) and shroud form a blower system to constantly push air across the coil and cylinder fins. If there is a piece missing, or any air inlet partially blocked with debris then the cooling will be poor and the coil will be more prone to failure. Often times a Lawnboy ceasing to run after it warms up is due to very bad crankshaft seals, rather than spark.