Hello all!
I own a lawn tractor with a 22hp B&S OHV twin in it. I've been using it with a blower attachment to clear my rather long driveway. It had been working well until we received a foot of snow the other day (lovely timing, Murphy's Law etc). The engine will turn over all day but not start. I have the problem traced to an electrical issue. When I pulled the plug and grounded it to the engine block there was no spark but if I put the terminal directly on the block there was. In order to rule out a safety switch vs ignition coil failure I tried disconnecting a black wire that was connected to the coil to see if the plug would then spark. Sure enough it did. I screwed the plug back in and tried starting and it fired right up. So I let it run for a few minutes and then turned it off to put the cowl and air filter back on, but when I tried to start it up it wouldn't. This time was different though; it would start up and fire for a few cycles and then quit as where before it wouldn't fire at all. Since it's a twin I tried unplugging the black wire from the other ignition coil and that worked, the engine started again. I drove around on the tractor a bit, blew some snow and put her back in the garage. After I shut her down, I tried to start it again to see if it would but no luck. This is obviously some sort of safety switch problem but I don't even know where to begin and I'm running out of black wires to unplug ;)
Thanks in advance for any advice!
I own a lawn tractor with a 22hp B&S OHV twin in it. I've been using it with a blower attachment to clear my rather long driveway. It had been working well until we received a foot of snow the other day (lovely timing, Murphy's Law etc). The engine will turn over all day but not start. I have the problem traced to an electrical issue. When I pulled the plug and grounded it to the engine block there was no spark but if I put the terminal directly on the block there was. In order to rule out a safety switch vs ignition coil failure I tried disconnecting a black wire that was connected to the coil to see if the plug would then spark. Sure enough it did. I screwed the plug back in and tried starting and it fired right up. So I let it run for a few minutes and then turned it off to put the cowl and air filter back on, but when I tried to start it up it wouldn't. This time was different though; it would start up and fire for a few cycles and then quit as where before it wouldn't fire at all. Since it's a twin I tried unplugging the black wire from the other ignition coil and that worked, the engine started again. I drove around on the tractor a bit, blew some snow and put her back in the garage. After I shut her down, I tried to start it again to see if it would but no luck. This is obviously some sort of safety switch problem but I don't even know where to begin and I'm running out of black wires to unplug ;)
Thanks in advance for any advice!