Purchase a 10yr old mower with a Briggs & Stratton 4.5hp at a yard sale. Owner was not certain if it would run but I did manage to get it to fire with a few shots of carb cleaner in the carburetor. Decided to clean it up with a good gas tank cleaning, new primer bulb, adjusted governor speed, blade sharpened, carb cleaning (replaced diaphragm), oil change and spark plug renewal, and finally - cleaned/oiled the air filter. Reassembled and filled the gas tank. It started on the 2nd pull and off I go cutting the grass. Ten minutes later the revs dropped off as the engine struggled - then quit. I could not get it going. I performed the following checks:
- check for spark: ok
- check oil level: ok
- check fuel level: full
- checked the kill switch/brake mechanism: not familiar with this but all seemed well
After fiddling around I managed to get it going another 10+ minutes of grass cutting and the same thing happened again. Revs dropped and quit. Acts like it runs out of gas in spite of the tank being full. Did notice the spring ring inside the rubber spark plug boot was broken so it may be a little loose on the spark plug. So I used pliers to squeeze it onto the spark plug. Got it going again but the same issue occurred. I'm at a loss as to what is wrong. Has anyone else experienced such? Very frustrated.
- check for spark: ok
- check oil level: ok
- check fuel level: full
- checked the kill switch/brake mechanism: not familiar with this but all seemed well
After fiddling around I managed to get it going another 10+ minutes of grass cutting and the same thing happened again. Revs dropped and quit. Acts like it runs out of gas in spite of the tank being full. Did notice the spring ring inside the rubber spark plug boot was broken so it may be a little loose on the spark plug. So I used pliers to squeeze it onto the spark plug. Got it going again but the same issue occurred. I'm at a loss as to what is wrong. Has anyone else experienced such? Very frustrated.