What on God's green earth is wrong with my mower???

[Phillip w]

I have a cub cadet zerI turn mower with a brigigs and Stratton engine. I am not bashing nothing, but the fuel delivery system is definitely not the way I would have done it. If you old school, think of the days when every thing was gravity flow and if you had trouble you just tweaked the needle valve cause that is how it is acting. It misses, lopes, sometimes run with choke on sometimes runs with off and sometimes runs real good for a couple of passes. I replaced all the gas lines, fuel filter, fuel pump, no fix. I thought maybe I got bad gas. Siphoned the tank, put fresh gas in it, no fix. The is some kind of electrical something on the bottom of the carburetor, anybody know what it does? I'm at a loss with tis thing.

 

[RandyT]

Sounds like you have some junk floating around in the carb, Need to remove it and do a good cleaning. and that thing on the bottom of the carb is the anti bang solenoid.

 

[Phillip w]

Hey randy, thanks. I may not want to fiddel with the carburetor. Carburators have never been my strong suit even back in the 70's be fuel injection. We have a small engine man at our local farm and home that is pretty good. Looks like I'm loading it up and taking it to town.

 

[LD1]

I agree that you have carb issues. Take it apart, clean it real good, and try again.

The thing with the wires is a fuel stop. It shuts fuel off to the intake immediately when the key is turned off. Prevents a loud backfire like so many small engines are notorious for.

 

[hawkeye08]

Put some Seafoam in gas tank (with the gas), run it for 5-10 minutes, shutoff and let sit for 20 minutes, then run it again. It will often clean out the issue.

 

[JRobyn]

You can often e-bay buy a complete replacement carb for only a little more than a rebuild kit. You'll need your EXACT engine model/serial/build numbers.

 

[jaxs]

Put some Seafoam in gas tank (with the gas), run it for 5-10 minutes, shutoff and let sit for 20 minutes, then run it again. It will often clean out the issue.

I was never a fan of mechanic in a bottle but slowly coming around thanks to E fuel,EPA compliant fuel delivery systems and recent experience with Seafoam. Wood chipper barely ran and bogged down when fed small branches,seafoam helped A BUNCH so I'll use chipper until it won't do the job before trying to get it back 100%. 20 hp briggs lawn tractor has required a liitle choke to prevent surging for 3 years then out of the blue,hardly ran at full chock. Drained tank, added 1 quart gas + 2 oz seafoam,started up to run 5 minutes,killed it,went back next day and it ran much better. Added 2 gallons gas and it's ran every since WITHOUT ANY AMOUNT OF CHOKE. Haven't tried it in oil yet.

 

[Bob_Bainbridge]

I have a late model Toro push mower that has absolutely no carb adjustments and doesn't even have a choke. It has electric start and ran fine when new. After a few seasons of Ethanol gas it would start and immediately die 5 or 6 times and then surge awhile before I could use it. I poured sum Gumout carb cleaner formulated for ethanol problems in the tank. The next week it started right up and ran fine. I now pour a little into the tank every month.

Bob B.

 

[Phillip w]

Hey guys, just an update. I took my mower to the "fix it guy". Yep carburetor was a mess. The cleaned it all up and it works good now. Thanks again guys.

 

[sixdogs]

Hey guys, just an update. I took my mower to the "fix it guy". Yep carburetor was a mess. The cleaned it all up and it works good now. Thanks again guys.

As a Seafoam believer, put some in the tank on a regular basis and add more before you store for the winter. Then run it out of fuel before storing and start with fresh gas in the spring. Even better is to just use non-ethanol gas if you can get it. Seafoam works and ethanol doesn't and if you don't pay attention will likely have this problem again.

 

[stuckmotor]

Are you running the correct fuel filter? tried one of those see through jobs on my Snapper and had bad results, switcned to origonal equipment and solved the problem.

 

[fried1765]

As a Seafoam believer, put some in the tank on a regular basis and add more before you store for the winter. Then run it out of fuel before storing and start with fresh gas in the spring. Even better is to just use ethanol gas if you can get it. Seafoam works and ethanol doesn't and if you don't pay attention will likely have this problem again.

"Even better is to use ethanol gas if you can get it."
Really????

 

[LD1]

Guessing he meant ethanol-free

 

[sixdogs]

"Even better is to use ethanol gas if you can get it."
Really????

You know what I meant; cut me some slack.

Guessing he meant ethanol-free

Indeed I did. Ethanol has ruined more stuff of mine than I care to recall. Thankfully, non-ethanol "pure gas" is available in many places. Get it if you can and save the hastle.

 

[BukitCase]

Agreed on the "congressional gas" thing; it's been about 6 YEARS since I used "E-crap" in ANYTHING I don't actually DRIVE to the gas station - 'bout the same time it's been since I either rebuilt or REPLACED a carburetor on small engines, 2 or 4 cycle

In my area, pure gas runs a little over a buck a gallon more - which adds up to maybe $35 a summer extra, GLADLY paid for and MORE than worth it compared to the constant frustration of stuff being harder to start, having less power, etc -

I post this link every so often, in case someone doesn't know where to look in their area -

http://pure-gas.org

...Steve

 

[Phillip w]

Picked up mower this morning. Yes he did recommend a higher grade fuel. Carburator was full o rust. He said that is typical of mowers coming in off the farm. He said only way to get rust like that is a metal can or fuel barrel. It my case the fuel barrel got me

 

[BukitCase]

Yeah, that's yet ANOTHER thing you can (at least partially) thank ethanol for - being hygroscopic, it picks up water in the air; then, unless you keep your (metal) tank OVERFLOWING when you store it, everything above the "water line" has a perfect environment for rust... Steve

 

[Phillip w]

I am just glad it did not screw up my wife's suv, our van or my pickup. With electronic fuel injection that would have really got pricey. I probably change the filter on the barrel before I use it again