OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums Repairs and Maintenance Questions on Engines Questions On Briggs & Stratton Engines A very weird one - Rover Ride-On

Hi All

I have a Rover Ranger AutoDrive ride-on with a Briggs and Stratton 10.5hp motor. On the last two occasions I've used it, the mower started fine, and it continued to work fine if I drove it straight or turned to the right. When I turn to the left, the engine coughs and splutters. When the engine is cold it dies altogether - when it's warmed up, it continues to splutter and backfire but keeps going.

I thought someone might have some idea of what's going on and what I might be able to do to fix this rahter perplexing issue.

Thanks and kind regards

Frodo

Hi Frodo, and welcome to Outdoorking. It's surprising that cognomen was not grabbed years ago, but now you've got it, keep it.

Ultimately you may have to go through the proper procedure for tuning and diagnosing, but I can make an off the top of the head guess. Your mower has gravity fuel feed. It appears that when you turn left the mixture goes lean. The obvious thing to suspect is that there is an obstruction in the fuel tank that floats around a bit but blocks the outlet when you turn left. You might try removing and cleaning out the tank and fuel line. If that doesn't work it will be time to take a look at the carburetor, where the fuel enters upstream of the needle and seat, and then in the float bowl. I'm guessing you have a large flo-jet carburetor, and there could be issues in the float mechanism if it has been messed up by a previous tenant.

Please report back after you clean out the tank and line, and tell us whether that was the problem. If not, we can lead you through a process for getting the carburetor up to scratch.

Another thing to look for would be an electrical short. Look for frayed wires or similar.

I had a briggs on a kart which would splutter when the tank was low when going around corners due to the lack of baffles and fuel sloshing around. Try with a full tank

Howdy, I take it from what I know of these models, this has a Live Axle. Correct??
If so, I'm going to think outside the square on this one!

With a live axle, both wheels drive at the same speed, as opposed to a diff drive where when turning, the inner wheel goes somewhat slower. On a live axle, the inner wheel needs to lose traction and spin so that the ground speed can remain the same during the turn. Now if, and I'll use your case as an example, when turning right it runs fine, then I would say the right wheel is losing traction and the drive is provided by the left wheel. When turning left however, I feel that it is still the right wheel losing traction, and because the left wheel is the inner of the turn, the wheel will not rotate at the correct ground speed. This would then cause the engine revs to decrease.

This would then lead to the throttle setting being far to high for the engine revs, and in turn, allow too much fuel into the engine. Hence the symptoms.

So my suggestion is to check that the tread on both tyres are about the same wear and pattern, (diferent patterns give diferent traction), and that the air pressure in both the tyres is the same, about 20 PSI.

I know this may sound strange to some, but this is also where I'd be looking.