Outdoor Power Equipment and Small Engines - Dead'er 'n a doornail!!

I have a new Sears lawn tractor with the 16 hp Kohler engine with about 5 running hours. Yesterday I pulled it out of the stable, gassed it and saddled up. It cranked fine and I drove around to the front of my palatial estate to do business with my encroaching crab grass. I set the parking break and reduced the engine speed to idle, then dismounted in order to move a garden hose. While I was thus engaged, the engine issued a loud backfire (in fact I saw a flash at the muffler discharge) and ceased to run. No amount of coaxing would get it to crank again. The battery turned it over vigorously, but no luck. I pulled the spark plug and cranked some more and discovered that I had no spark. I was sitting in the saddle, to ensure the dead-man switch was engaged and had the plug attached in a location I could view it while cranking. I will be able to get this repaired under the warranty, so I'm not going to do any repair myself, but I am wondering if any of you folks might wish to hazzard a guess as to what the problem may be. I'll post back after I find out and have it fixed.:confused:

Hello thiggy!

Possibly a bad coil, spark plug, or a shorted wire. That's about all I can think of at the moment. It is possible that a valve train component came apart to cause the backfire, and the backfire and/or subsequent cranking ruined or fouled the spark plug. Let us know what the problem is determined to be. I hope you get better svc from sears than people in my area do.

Make sure you have disengaged the blades
before trying to restart.
Fish