Briggs & Stratton sucky (1 Viewer)

[El Cazador]

I have a good rototiller but has been used very little over the last 5 years. Now it takes an act of God (i.e., I use God's name in various wayg in the starting process, making sure the girls are not near enough to hear me) to get it started, and once started just won't run well. It's like the timing is way off, is coughing out a little smoke, which it never did before, and when I move the fuel supply lever to max acceleration it just stalls.
Any ideas where to start to get this running well again.
Thanks.
Vic
Redlands, CA

 

[D'Animal]

How old is it?

It could have points in it and they need changed or the condensor is bad.

You could also have a sheared flyhweel key. Does the rope "Kick" back in when you try to start it?

 

[Problygot1]

change the spark plug,dump the old gas,and toss a half acan of Seafoam in the gas,and a little in the oil(as per directions/volume).You may probably want to dump the oil first putting in hd 30,use it twice and dump,then put the seafoam in again.I would be surprised if that didnt work,that stuff works well in my boat,minibike,cruzrs,backpack blower,weed eater.........good luck,Happy STPaddys day....Peter

 

[El Cazador]

No, no kickback. I'll dig out the literature that it came with (can't believe I still have it after 15 years + !) and go through it. Thanks for the suggestion, D'Animal. When I get this sorted out I'll get with you on my little Stihl chainsaw and its starting issues.

 

[El Cazador]

Cleaned the plug & put it back in & tried to start again. Didn't get too far, same sputtering as before. Pulled the plug out & it had a lot of oil on it. Would a timing issue cause that or would that only be ring failure or something else like that?

 

[haystax]

What kind of carb does it have? How many horsepower? The smaller engines with the diapragm fuel pump tend to get gunked up and cause more fits than those with a gravity fed carb. Those tend to flood easily, sounds like maybe yours is, and the floats are a PITA. Points and condenser are pretty old nowadays, but would be the easiest fix

Can you get it to run on ether? Have you cleaned the carb or sprayed any carb cleaner? Usually a new plug gapped a little wide will help.

I have about 12 B&S 8hp motors on irrigation lines to mess with every year, the ancient engines seem to be great until they absolutely die and the newer OHV aren't that bad actually. Engines built in between, like 90s are pure s***.

 

[lcruzrlvr]

Pull the float bowl and check for rust inside, check fuel filter for said rust particles, and completely drain the fuel tank. Our woodsplitter had the same running issues due the issues above. Beyond these checks, I have also replaced the carburetor on another engine for $80 - fired right up with the new carb.