lawnboy mower question

[nick]

about 4 years ago the throttle cable on my 87 model lawn boy broke. It would still run fine but no throttle. So this year I put on a new trottle cable. Now I am getting no spark. I gained access to the magneto, to it out and buffed the rust off the contacts. There is a wire that runs from the magneto to something in from that seems inaccessable, but conceveably could be a part of the magneto. I still get no spark, if I disconnect the wired I still get no spark. I assume it was part of the kill system as that is where the kill cable goes to. This is a 20 year old mower with little use. But after purchase of the cable I have almost 30 more dollars in it and am relectant to spend more with out know what is wrong. Is there a proper gapping on the magneto? Is there a way to bypass the kill system?

[tksirius]

There are two wires that come out of that coil. One is thick and goes to the spark plug. The other is a 14 or 16 guage wire (thin) that goes to a switch somewhere. That is what kills the motor when you want it off. The gap between the magnet and the coil should only be a business card thickness. Maybe two of them. Just make sure that after its tight that it doesnt come in contact with the flywheel or the magnet on it.

Its not uncommon for a coil to go bad. It happens. I presume you DID change the sparkplug, ground it to the motor and give it a few pulls to make sure that there no spark. You can borrow a plug from another piece of equipment just to test for spark just make sure to do this in a somewhat shaded area or you'll never see the spark.

Otherwise you can EASILY get a coil from ebay for next to nothing.

[Ulysses]

I agree with what tksirius said. I generally use a folded sheet of copy paper to set the air gap. The thinner wire, if disconnected, will disable the kill switch. Check for spark. It is probably a bad ignition coil/module. Sometimes the spark will be intermittant on the electronic ignition coils if they are bad. If you have good spark it's time to check the carburator. Do you leave old gas in it for long periods of time? When you say you took out the magneto does that mean you removed the flywheel? Did you use a puller or a hammer? Banging on those things can cause a loss of magnetism and hence no spark. $30 seems like an awful lot for a throttle cable.

[Rodney Zapf]

replying to Ulysses, Rodney Zapf wrote: I have a similar problem. I did bang on the crankshaft nut to loosen the flywheel but there seems to be much magnetic "pull" between the fly wheel and the module . The mower is an model 8237 and I did purchase a new module and installed it with ,010 clearance. With no ground wires attached, the plug grounded , hand spinning the flywheel (pretty fast), I cannot detect a spark (dark room) . What could cause this?

[clare]

Requires 600 RPM to fire?