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Dunno if this should be here, as its about a garden machine, but not gardening, or in cars because it's about an engine, but not a car.
I've got a John Deere push mower with a 140cc Briggs & Stratton engine.
A couple of weeks ago I started it, not just for the first time this year, but for the first time in about 3 years.
Fuel tank was bone dry, and the can only had dregs, so I went and filled that so I was starting with a fresh tank of E10.
Normally I used to find that for the first start of the year, if I gave the priming button 6 presses instead of the normal 3, pulled the cord slowly 2-3 times to turn the engine over, that it would start on the 2nd or 3rd hard pull.
This year, nada. Repeat.
I'd almost given up when it began starting and then dying almost immediately. It seemed as if it was only running on the fuel that the priming button had delivered (if I gave that, say 20 pushes, it would run for a whole 2 seconds before dying). Then it went through a stage of starting without needing to be primed, but again dying after a few seconds, but gradually the running time increased until eventually it stayed running.
I say "running", but it was misfiring, surging, plenty of pops and bangs from the exhaust, and it would die if I tried to cut with it. That too passed after a few minutes, and I could use it, but the revs seemed low, and it was definitely down on power.
This weekend I used it again, and it was the same story on starting, although a lot shorter to get to the running-but-misfiring point.
So - what needs doing to the engine to return it to full working order?
I've got a John Deere push mower with a 140cc Briggs & Stratton engine.
A couple of weeks ago I started it, not just for the first time this year, but for the first time in about 3 years.
Fuel tank was bone dry, and the can only had dregs, so I went and filled that so I was starting with a fresh tank of E10.
Normally I used to find that for the first start of the year, if I gave the priming button 6 presses instead of the normal 3, pulled the cord slowly 2-3 times to turn the engine over, that it would start on the 2nd or 3rd hard pull.
This year, nada. Repeat.
I'd almost given up when it began starting and then dying almost immediately. It seemed as if it was only running on the fuel that the priming button had delivered (if I gave that, say 20 pushes, it would run for a whole 2 seconds before dying). Then it went through a stage of starting without needing to be primed, but again dying after a few seconds, but gradually the running time increased until eventually it stayed running.
I say "running", but it was misfiring, surging, plenty of pops and bangs from the exhaust, and it would die if I tried to cut with it. That too passed after a few minutes, and I could use it, but the revs seemed low, and it was definitely down on power.
This weekend I used it again, and it was the same story on starting, although a lot shorter to get to the running-but-misfiring point.
So - what needs doing to the engine to return it to full working order?
