push lawn mower not starting

[slomo]

will do. i did spray some into the muffler and heard a huge pop

What? Spray liquid fire juice into the muffkin? "I want to party with you cowboy". From the movie Stripes with Billy Murray.

 

[slomo]

That engine has an thermostatic choke level located at the muffler. When it heats up it pulls the choke OPEN.

Remove the air filter cover. Look into the carb. Choke plate should be CLOSED with engine off and or cold.

1.Dump and flush out fuel tank.
2.Verify fuel flow AT carb.
3.CLEAN carb. As Bertsmobile1 said there's clean and then there's CLEAN. Think hospital clean here.
4.Install carb. Remove fan shroud. There is an air vane like arm that has a spring on it AT the carb. Spring and arm should pull the choke plate CLOSED engine off. Arm should move freely.
5.At muffler there is a thermostatic lever that contacts that arm. When muffler gets hot, lever and arm will move OPENING the choke. There are 2 line marks that the arm should be in between. You can GENTLY tweak the thermostatic arm to center it on the arm deal-e-o. Check youtube for videos on it. There's a bunch out there.

If you move the arm engine OFF, you should see the choke plate opening and closing. Verify this.....

Take an old spark plug. Gap to 0.25" or 6mm. That is a quarter of an inch. Check for spark. You must pull the rope WITH A PURPOSE. Magneto needs a min of 350rpm to fire. Don't pull it like my wife and expect it to start LOL LOL.

While the fan shroud is off, clean the cylinder cooling fins all the way around the cylinder. This is a YEARLY maintenance deal in your engine manual. Neglect this and you will have engine damage. These are air cooled and get to full temp in roughly 1-2 minutes. Keep the oil level exactly on the full mark.

Clean all the carbon and wipe all the carbon grit from the bore. Install head and fire it up.

Valve adjustment check wouldn't hurt either.

slomo

 

[slomo]

would it help if i cleaned all the carbon (especially around the valve seats) and installed a new head gasket? or is it better to just get rid of the machine?

Clean the carbon first.

 

[slomo]

On older engines like this one, people use Seafoam in the fuel. It breaks up carbon chunks that get into the cylinder and scores the aluminum bore. Not a wise move to use Seafoam right now, or ever. Resist the temptation to use any fuel additive other than real 100% gasoline.

slomo

 

[slomo]

ok so i checked everything over again. i used my spark plug tester and i do get spark. but the crazy thing is that if i spray starter fluid into the spark plug hole the machine still does not start or turn over. i did notice the machine has a cheap Chinese made armature. its not the original one. could it be possible that it is not the right one for the machine? the previous owner did try changing the armature so that makes sense. he said that the machine was running fine and then all of a sudden it stopped working.

Amazon Ebay Chi'-sneeze magneto alert!!

Are you talking about the ignition magneto? The deal on next to the flywheel/fan that makes the spark? If so get a real Briggs mag.

slomo

 

[topgun129]

i removed the muffler and opened the valve area and noticed that at top dead center the intake valve has no clearance and due to that the valve is not shut completely. the exhaust valve is fine. i assume this is the issue why there is oil burn and no compression, hence the machine is not starting?

thanks!

 

[Scrubcadet10]

Most likely.... Flathead clearances close up... and StarTech will tell you he's seen them with Negative clearance.. on flat heads you have to grind the end of the valve down a little teeny bit at time and keep rechecking clearance until the proper is achieved.
On the compression stroke as well?

 

[slomo]

Need to be at TDC on the COMPRESSION stroke.

 

[Scrubcadet10]

post a picture if you can,

 

[slomo]