Outdoor Power Equipment and Small Engines - Simplicity Stalls

Hello, My neighbor has a simplicity Regent with a 16.5 Kohlor Command Engine. After about 20 min of mowing it starts to to cough,backfire and quits. Will not krank, seems like battery dead. Wait 30 min and it kranks over like cold, no problem. Does any one know where to start? Can't check coil when this happens, will not krank to check spark.

Hello, My neighbor has a simplicity Regent with a 16.5 Kohlor Command Engine. After about 20 min of mowing it starts to to cough,backfire and quits. Will not krank, seems like battery dead. Wait 30 min and it kranks over like cold, no problem. Does any one know where to start? Can't check coil when this happens, will not krank to check spark.


Judging by the cough and backfire I would say that it sounds more like a valve timing issue insted of the coil anyway.Check the clearances.

There aren't any clearances to check on that engine...it has hydraulic lifters.

How old is the battery? I'm wondering if it has a bad connection internally, and is opening, causing the no start, and the backfiring when it dies (fuel shutoff solenoid losing power). Then when it sits and cools, the connection is made again?

Cheese,
The battery was new last year, it was test this year at the battery store and passed. Could the Start solenoid have anything to do with this problem? I thought after the key is returned to the run posistion it drops out. This would cause the no start?

Cheese is referring to the fuel solenoid, not the starting solenoid. The fuel solenoid is attached to the carburetor fuel bowl and requires a constant 12V power source for proper operation. If you lose power, by way of a failure within the battery, as Cheese suggested, the engine will shut down. And, now, with the battery failure, you will be unable to restart the engine. To test this theory, have a voltage tester immediately available upon failure and test the battery for voltage between the positive and negative posts.