Bought a 20 odd year old edger with a late 90s side valve 3.5hp side valve briggs on it. Owner admitted he always washed it down and he was pretty confident he cooked the coil as it lost spark.
I pulled it off the chassis, removed kill switch wire, still no go. swapped for a good known coil, still no good.
Another good coil, new plug connector, new plugs, kill switch wire on or off didn't matter - no spark
Tripped over it in the carport the other evening and was in a bad mood. I realised in 6+ months I had owned it at no point had it ever fired. So I picked it up and tossed it holus bolus in the bin. Landed PTO shaft down on soft rubbish.
About an hour later I remembered it still had a new plug, coil, etc on it so I pulled it back out.
As I was getting the socket set out I was asked why I threw it out (pretty out of character for me to throw anything out apparently although it actually turns out I was concussed at the time haha) and I explained that the damn thing had no spark despite replacing a myriad of parts and you can pull of the rope all day but it wont start.
As I pulled on the rope to demonstrate, the bloody thing fired up with half a pull on 6mth old fuel and ran perfectly once the choke was turned off.
Don't know if I jarred something loose or simply put the fear of god into it but it works perfect now, just had to reconnect the kill plug.
Next time I have this problem I will throw the motor in the bin straight away and see if it helps
