QuestionHello i have a brigg 18hp non overhead valve horizontal shaft its hard to crank but with plugs out it cranks fine.ive done the valve clearance check and fixed that.new starter and battery and she still is hard to crank what else could be the issue?
AnswerWhat were the valve gaps set at? How old is the mower?
Did you cleaning all the connections, battery terminals and cable ends, with a wirebrush before re-connecting everything?
I have fixed a lot of hard starting problems just by dis-connecting and cleaning connections.
You could have excess resistance in the cables but I have only seen this happen two times over the last 20 plus years...usually bad cables are tied to old age.
Do you have a volt meter and do you know how to measure voltage drop across a starter cable? You can Google "how to measure voltage drop" and find lots of detailed procedures. Voltage drop measurement worked to find the bad cables...after I checked the valves, compression, replaced the battery and starter...sound familar?
Clean the connections and measure the voltage drop across the battery cables. Check the power to the starter solenoid. Usually the solenoid either work or don't work so if it is working it's probably alright.
Make sure to clean the ground connections as well.
Eric
