Outdoor Power Equipment and Small Engines - 16.5 Briggs Twin- No spark, no matter what

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Wiredright
08-26-05, 11:15 AM
I have a murray riding mower with a 16.5 Twin cylinder briggs&Stratton that I cannot get spark.

The history of it is this:

It belonged to the neighbor, who neglected it. He let me use it when mine broke (since fixed it) I had to dissasemble the carb, clean it up, get it running. No problems, and it ran fine for a couple of mows. One day, I shut it down to go get a fresh beer (mowing aid) and when I came back it wouldn't start back up (no spark) checked everything, including all the shut off circuits (ie. won't start without someone in seat, blades disengaged, clutch pedal in ) and forget about it. No spark. I gave it back after a week of fooling with it and said I give up, no more time to mess with it.


Fast forward a year later. He has someone come by to look at it, they say it will be 300-500 to fix. So he buys a new one, gives me the old one for "parts"

The mower is in good shape. I cleaned out a years worth of sitting Idle and re-assembled it. Here's the weird part. When I first got it back I hooked it to the car battery and turned it over. I got spark. I had spark everytime I tried it while I was cleaning it up. Put in fresh gas, hit it with some ether and fired it up....it popped once or twice (more like coughed) and now I am back at square one...no spark, no matter what i fool with.

Any suggestions? I think I am down to either coil issues, or possible need a new "magnetron" ignition?

I can provide more info if needed. I am quite a decent mechanic, but this one has me a little puzzled.

Dave


cheese
08-26-05, 09:31 PM
Hello Dave!

The coil/armature is probably whats wrong here, but do this test if you haven't already: Unplug the kill wire from the coil and check for spark then. If still no spark, replace the coil. It comes with the magnetron ignition module built in nowadays.