Outdoor Power Equipment and Small Engines - Honda GX 120 engine floods, no spark.

An employee brought me our semi-trash pump and said the engine was flooded and wouldn't start. I removed the spark plug and cleaned it(blackened more than I would expect to see since we got it new a month ago), let it air out for a while, replaced the plug and tried to start it. No luck. I hooked up my spark tester to the plug and it showed no spark. After hooking up a new sparkplug, I started the engine(plug showing plenty of spark) but it died 5 seconds later on it's own. After that the new plug showed no spark. I got busy with something else and returned to it a while later and was able to start it right up. It died seconds later when I raised the throttle. Further attempts to start resulted in the typical no spark. Every once in a while I'll get a small spark but the whole thing baffles me. It's newish. It's got gas and oil. It's got a new spark plug. I'm not too familiar with engines and I don't understand why it would lose the spark. Any information or links would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Make sure the oil level is all the way to the top thread in the oil fill port.

If still no spark disconnect the black wire leading from behind the flywheel going to the kill switch.

If still no spark contact your local Honda dealer for a possible new coil install under warranty.

Good Luck

Wow. Seriously. It was the oil. Rookie mistake. Thanks a lot. Needed to add about 3 oz more. This particular engine seems to be very sensitive about the oil level. I'll have to check the other 2 just to be safe.