OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums Repairs and Maintenance Questions on Walk Behind Lawn Mower Frames Four Stroke Lawn Mower Frames Honda mower won't start?

Let's begin with a couple of things about your mower that are irregular by Honda's standards. First, the speed control cable, from the lever on the handlebar to the governor plate, is non-genuine. Whether it works properly depends on whether the lengths of inner and outer are correct. Second, the carburetor is not a Honda one - Honda uses Keihin carburetors, the one you have is a Ruixing copy of the Keihin for that engine. That need not be a problem - so far I have found Ruixing carburetors to work properly and their calibration to be close to the Honda ones. Third, the protective cover is missing from your governor plate. This picture shows GXV120 (your engine) and GXV140 (the engine used on the HRU195) governor plates with the covers in place:


The fourth and final irregularity is the most interesting one: your mower has a Honda GXV120 engine, but it has been fitted with a Honda GXV140 governor plate. Here are the two governor plates, shown with the cover plates removed so you can see the mechanism. First, the genuine GXV120 one:


Here is the GXV140 one, the same as yours:


The GXV140 one has an extra mechanism not found on the GXV120. The GXV120 has just one screw adjustment, to stop the choke from being closed too far, and potentially damaging it. The GXV140 has this same screw adjustment, but it also has another one. The second screw adjusts the maximum governed engine speed. As an additional sophistication, the GXV140 governor plate reduces the maximum governed engine speed when the choke is operating. Generally the GXV140 governor plate is superior to the GXV120 one, though the extra features may make the governor more difficult for an amateur to set up.

Now, let's talk about how to adjust the governor plate so that your choke closes correctly. The choke is operated as follows. Look at this marked up version of the GXV120 governor plate:



Look first at the green oval near the top of the picture. This is the top of the choke operating bellcrank. A wire link runs from the hole there, to the black plastic bellcrank on the choke butterfly on the carburetor. The hole in the green oval needs to move to the left by a precise amount, to close the choke. Here's how it is done. Look at the yellow circle. The yellow circle shows a tab on the same bellcrank that operates the choke. So, if that tab is lifted upward, the choke closes. Now look at the bottom green oval. That is around a tab on the speed control lever (which is operated by the speed control cable). When you move the speed control lever to choke, the green tab moves upward, snags the yellow tab, and closes the choke. Now look at the red oval near the green one, on the speed control lever. It shows a mechanical stop. When the choke is fully applied, it moves around and hits the end of the adjusting screw in the other red oval.

Here is your latest picture of the governor plate on your engine:


The green oval shows that the speed control lever has not moved all the way until its mechanical stop hits the adjusting screw. If the adjustment of that screw has been correctly set up, the choke is not closing fully. To verify that this is the actual situation (the stop-screw adjustment is correct, but the speed control lever is not moving as far as it should), we need to know whether the choke is fully closed when you put the speed control all the way, as far as possible toward choke. To do this, see if it is possible to lift the tab in the red oval on that picture, or rotate the black plastic choke bellcrank even slightly anticlockwise, when the speed control is on full choke. If so, your choke is not closing fully, and it will need to be adjusted. We can talk about how to do that once you verify that it needs to be done, by checking whether the choke closes at present.