If you came to this page with the hope of finding out why your gasoline engine mower does not start, you are definitely closer to finding an answer! After a long cold winter or a long period of time, like many of you, I found that I tried to pull out chords for lawn mowers so many times, I often felt that I was in an exercise class. Due to my limited budget for repairing lawn equipment, I was forced to deal with my minor engine problems. With dozens of engine repairs under my belt, I now proceeded to document my lessons learned from the DIY lawn-mower mini-series so you can get back on the grass, grass. Below I have identified the main areas of knowledge needed to diagnose a faulty engine.
It should be known that small engines do not go beyond DIY or warriors on weekends, so for troubleshooting! Let us determine why your lawn mower does not start:
• Have you checked whether there is gasoline in your equipment?
• Does the engine have enough oil in it?
• Is the air filter clean?
• Is the spark plug wire properly connected to the spark plug?
• Have you given a lawnmower chord a minimum of 10 to 15 good strong pulls?
• Have you pushed out a primer bulb several times if your equipment is equipped with one?
• Has the mower been turned upside down? (If yes, you may have filled the combustion chamber with oil)
• Have you confirmed that there are no cracks in the engine block?
• · Can you confirm that there was no water entering the engine?
• · Can you confirm that the traction chord runs freely and that the engine rotates smoothly in the off position?
Once you have determined that none of the above problems can start your engine, you need to go to the next set of possible scenarios. Lawnmower engines, like all engines, have three special requirements for starting: fuel supply, ignition and compression. If your engine has a problem with any of the critical elements listed above, your engine will not start or will work very unstablely, which can eventually lead to engine destruction.
Ignition test
The ignition system is usually responsible for producing electrical impulses or “sparks” that ignite the air-fuel mixture directed into the combustion chamber of your small engine. To make sure your ignition system functions as indicated, follow the instructions below:
1. Remove the spark plug wire from the spark plug
2. Remove the spark plug with a wrench or a ratchet (make sure you don’t damage the ceramic part of the candle!)
3. Reconnect the spark plug wire to the spark plug when it is unscrewed from the engine.
4. Orient yourself to the lawn mower so that you can pull the starting chord while holding the spark plug electrode away from a part of the metal engine that was not covered with paint or debris.
5. Give the initial chord on the engine a few slow and steady loads and keep your eyes on the gap of the spark plug electrodes (at the tip of the plug)
6. Make sure that when removing the starting chord there is a small blue spark of the arc across the gap of the spark plug.
7. If a spark exists, you can eliminate disregard as an immediate reason for not starting a release. On the next step!
Compression test
Now that you have confirmed that your small engine is getting a spark, it's time to check that all the internal moving parts work in such a way that sufficient compression is created in the engine's combustion chamber. Simply put, compression is developed in the combustion chamber from the up and down action of the piston, rod and crankshaft. When the piston moves to the spark plug, the compression increases in the chamber until the air / fuel ignites, and vice versa, when the piston moves away from the spark plug during its lower stroke, a negative pressure is created or the combustion chamber is vacuum that consumes more air / fuel mixture for the next stroke power.
To measure the compression of your lawn mower, a specialized tool, known as a pressure gauge. The price of compression sensors varies in price, but a perfectly functional unit can have less than $ 30 and can be used on any engine that accepts a standard-size spark plug. To use the gauge, follow the instructions below:
1. Screw the gauge thread into the engine ignition hole so that it is tightly tightened.
2. Pull the starter rope several times, as if you were trying to start the mower
3. Stop the tension of the starter rope and look at the sensor wheel to see your engine reads (pounds per square inch).
4. Although the engines have different designs and capacities, as a rule, reading below 80 psi is a sign that there is a problem with compression.
Unfortunately, the problem of compression often leads to some of the most expensive bills. This is largely due to the fact that the damaged (clogged) wall of the cylinder can be repaired only due to the fact that the engine block is processed in a specialized shop, with a hole in the hole of larger diameter, and then, finally, with a new piston and rings. The cost of this set of procedures is usually more expensive than the cost of a new gas-powered lawn mower.
If your cylinder walls were not clogged, there is a chance that the dry air / fuel condition will be resolved in the blow hole of your piston. Although this repair still involves disarming your equipment, this is a job you can do with DIY if the correct tools and procedures are followed.
Fuel check
As mentioned above, the third critical need for an engine is the need for fuel supply. Of the three critical needs, fuel delivery problems are most often responsible for an engine that does not start. To determine the best way to diagnose whether the problem of fuel delivery is the culprit, it is necessary to visualize the scheme in which gasoline must move in order to make its way from the gas tank to the combustion chamber. Below, I set out the way in which gasoline must move freely in order to break through to the spark plug in order to ignore it:
1. Install or try to remember how many years the fuel in the gas tank. If fuel is older than six months, it will start to deteriorate.
2. If your gasoline is older than 6 months and your engine does not start or does not work properly, empty the gas cylinder and fill it with high-octane gasoline (91 octane or higher) that contains less ethanol, which is the main ingredient responsible for gumming carburetors.
3. Mix the fuel stabilizer into the gas each time you refill the mower.
4. Ensure that the small fuel hose connecting the gas cylinder to the carburetor is not damaged, as they often fail or burn from the engine block.
5. If the small hose is not damaged, you will most likely block the passage in the carburetor, which prevents gas from flowing through the device.
6. Refer to my next article on cleaning the lawn mower carburetor.
It should be noted that the above three critical factors, or ignition, compression and fuel supply, have been discussed mainly for the purpose of starting the engine. There are other problems associated with engine cooling, exhaustion, valve switching time and valve, which can also affect the reasons why the engine does not start, but it is usually known that it causes unstable engine behavior after the engine starts.
Thanks for reading, and good luck!
