Briggs and Stratton mower (b&q)

[Burnerman]

Jungle Busters - aka Gateshead Mower Centre - are a great firm to know about, I'm in there often enough! They'll also do Izy decks for around the ton.
Unfortunately there's no guarantee if the engine mounting bolt holes are the same, but often enough, they are.
The problem is, 'how good is your chinese engine anyway'
John

 

[elcaro]

Nige, yes I have a 21 year old Honda 5 hp outboard which I bought in 2002 and which then spent 12 years in my shed, till 2014 (takes me a while to get round to things), and now seems to work fine. I'll keep the Honda mower or at least all the bits and maybe re-deck it sometime. My garden ain't huge but it's pretty steep and I could see a time coming when I might want to keep one mower up top and t'other at the bottom to save climbing up and down 2 sets of steps carrying a mower, not getting any younger!
At the moment I'm waiting for darkness to get a good look at the spark on the B&Q. If it looks ok spark-wise I'll re-carb that and see what happens.
- Terry.

 

[elcaro]

John, others, I'm getting a good spark on the machine with the duff carb so I'll order a new carb from the Gatehead lads as mentioned above and report back
Regards, Terry.

 

[Burnerman]

Terry - looking at the original engine, was the oil level correct, and the oil clean? It may give us a clue as to how the engine was cared for in the past.
John

 

[Nige F]

Just an aside re: oil - when I got my ancient yet little used rotavator I looked @ the oil in the filler, it was clean. I thought I'd drain it anyway. It came out black then a bit of clean last. ( that was without starting/warming it up) The old thing had sat so long with a non detergent oil in it that the detritus had settled out ! It now runs on a modern multigrade

 

[elcaro]

Ah hi all, thanks for your replies. I've had shingles - not very pleasant - so sorry for the delay. Anyway, got a carb from Gateshead mowers, stuck it on and I can't say it started 1st pull cos it started about half way through the first pull, and without me holding the "operator presence control" aka dead man's handle! Weird but then I pulled the handle down and released it then it started behaving more normally I e had to hold the dead man's handle to start it. It is still a bit funny, cuts out sometimes, but OK for the rough stuff in the jungle for 30 quid.
Regards, terry

 

[Burnerman]

The operator handle has two functions.....first, it brakes the flywheel to smartly stop it spinning, and secondly it has a low tension cut out - a black wire coming from the ignition coil.
Maybe check the latter to see if it's misbehaving?
John

 

[elcaro]

Burnerman, thanks. Sorry about delay. After I got better from shingles I had to have a hernia op - got to get my money's worth out of the NHS !
Anyway yes, I see the brake on the flywheel etc now cos I had to try to replace the starter cord when that snapped. Not much luck, I just used a bit of rope but that jams so it must need special cord. I also lost a bolt holding the pulley on !
Might give up with this darned thing!
- Terry.

 

[Burnerman]

Sounds like you've been in the wars, Terry......hoping you are recovering nicely.
Use a 4mm nylon starter cord for these - hold a flame under the end and pull the molten strands into a point. No need to undo the starter mechanism on these.....usually you can wind the starter pulley up, local it and then feed the cord through the recoil hole through into the pulley, where you tie a knot in it.
You'll see a U groove in the metal surrounding the surrounding pulley metalwork.....the cord fits in this and allows you to get sufficient tension on the recoil spring as you rotate it.
John

 

[elcaro]

belated thanks Burnerman!
Regards,
Terry