Craftsman 18hp Intec OHV Engine

TomT123 · May 22, 2009

When starting, engine will start to spin but hit a hard spot and stop. It does this even when I have my truck battery jumpered to the tractor. I can manually turn the engine through the hard spot and it will crank with a pop or backfiring noise and run and start fine the rest of the day. The next time I use it the same thing happens. Is it the valves? If so, does anyone know a site that will give instructions on adjusting them?
Any help would be very greatly appreciated!
Thanks!

6string · May 22, 2009

Hi Tom, I have a 5yr. old Poulan that started doing the same thing last summer. From what I have read on other forums and there may be older posts about it on here somewhere,it sounds like the valves are out of adjustment. I think there is a compression release "lobe" on the camshaft that makes for easy starting and when the valves get out of adjustment it causes hard starting. I am taking mine to a shop, I attempted to adjust mine, but did not have proper feeler guages. There are some videos on Youtube that cover valve adjustments, but I'm not sure if they are accurate. Mine sounds like a 2cyl. firing on 1cyl. for about 10 seconds and then smoothes out.

TomT123 · May 22, 2009

Thanks! I treid to find a maunal on Amazon but no luck. I'll probably end up taking it to the shop if I can't find the instrucions on how to adjust the valves. Thanks for your help.