QuestionOk, so here it is…… I’ve never, in my 51 years, met any brand, make or model of small engine I couldn’t get and keep running…… UNTIL NOW.
I have an almost mint condition self-propelled 2 stroke Lawnboy model 8073. It has that emergency flywheel brake and electric kill switch.
It ran fine last year but this year it won’t even kick - no spark at all. Tried a new plug and still nothing!
I have tried disconnecting the kill switch wire, lightly sanding the minor surface rust on the flywheel magnets, cleaning both coil pick-ups and mount surfaces, re-set the air gap to EXACTLY 0.010” and the plug to 0.020” and still no spark.
I have exchanged the coil and plug from my brothers known good running Lawnboy and still no spark on my machine. Put my old coil and plug on HIS machine and it runs fine so I know the coil and plug are good.
Is it possible the flywheel magnets are too weak to generate enough current for a spark? Any piece of metal touched against either flywheel magnet still has lots of attractive force so I don’t think that’s what’s wrong but I’m stumped and now grasping for answers.
My lawn is so tall now I need a map just to get to the back shed. I’m ready to trash the mower and buy a new one!
Any suggestions?
Answer Back then Lawnboy got cute and came out with some coils that
were different. The vast majority of magneto coils are grounded
to "kill" the engine, they came up with the idea to make some that
needed to be grounded to run, and your "kill" switch may be bad.
So try grounding the coil with a jumper and see what happens.
