Outdoor Power Equipment and Small Engines - JD 175 won't start.

Hi, I'm new here and have seen a lot of good information. I hope someone can help me. I have a 1990 John Deere 175 lawnmower that won't start, actually I had it running once after I cleaned under the fly wheel. It started hard but it did start. After I put the shroud back on it wouldn't start. Plug gets flooded, it does have spark. I stuck a screwdriver in the cap and got spark but I had to hold it within an 1/8" of the engine. I'm thinking the coil could be weak? I've had the carberator apart and ran a small wire through all the orifice's. I put a new plug in and it tried to start a couple of times. Any suggestions? Sorry for the long story!

Hello mgb!

The plug gets soaked with gas? Have you checked the plug itself to see if it sparks? Might just be a gassed plug.

Did you remove the flywheel to clean under it? If so, and you didn't properly torque the flywheel nut back on then the key may be sheared, throwing the ignition timing off. Also, having put the shroud back on, did you possibly pinch the ground wire causing such to have a partial bare spot then intermittently grounding out?

The plug has spark. I'm sure I tightened the nut on the flywheel enough. The pinched wire could be what's wrong or the plug wire may have bad insulation around the area of the shroud too, with the shroud off it possibly was far enough away from ground. At one point I shut the gas off and sprayed ether into the carb and nothing. The last time I used it it started very hard, and while it was running I opened the hood to hose it down. It died! Now I wonder maybe it is the plug wire? But the plug wire itself isn't replaceble, have to buy the coil.

Put a new coil in last night and it fired right up! Just in time, the grass is gettin' high! Thanks everyone for the help!

Great! Thanks for letting us know how it went!