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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 laugh
Hi Tyler,
I picked up 24 mowers a few days ago and there is 14 of the Briggs that are not going to start so they are going into the scrap bin, never to be pulled out again. A few of them run but are smokey and others have spark but will not fire. At least I got 10 that run ok
I found a mower in the next street to where I live yesterday. It was an MTD with Briggs Qantum but was too heavy to put in the boot as it was SP.
I could have wheeled it home but just didn't want to bother at the time. When I came back 40 minutes later it was gone and of course felt regret as I realised I could have used the parts for a Briggs Victa which I forgot at the time.
This also reconfirmed that mowers never stay long on kerbside rubbish. Plenty of tinkerers out there.
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