Hello All,

I have a Yard Machines Lawn Tractor with a B&S 17.5hp opposed twin engine. It is five years old and had been running fine until last week. It will start but it dies very quickly. It seems to be flooding. I had a Sears small engine repair guy look at it today and what he told me really shocked me. He said the engine basically shot. He claimed it is flooding because the governor inside the engine is broken and it is allowing the throttle butterfly to close as soon as the engine starts. I can believe the diagnosis but I find it hard to believe it would be so expensive to fix that it isn't worth fixing. The Sears guy said it would cost at least $400 to fix.

I'm curious if any B&S experts out there have heard of this problem and agree the Sears guy.

TIA.

Rick

 

Hi RickGr4 I've been doing small engines for 31 years and in my expeiance whenever the machanical governor inside the enginr is massed up,the engine will still crank and run (it might run wide open or wont rev up at all,but it will run).The problem sounds to me like your carburetor is clogged up.
Take it off and take it aport and clean it real good.And too I've found on some that the throttle butterfly was just stuck,if this be the case just spay it with WD-40 and work it back and forth till it frees up.

 

Hello Rick!

What he said shocks me as well. That's a load of bull hockey.
Either the guy is waaay out there and has no real idea, and fills in his technical voids with fancy talk, or he is trying to rip you off. Hopefully the prior.

I agree, the carb probably needs cleaning. The governor will not close the butterfly if it is defective, and closing the throttle butterfly doesn't flood the engine anyway. And even with the throttle butterfly valve closed, it should still idle.

Remove the air filter and housing, then remove the four 5/16" scresw holding the top of the carb on. Remove the top of the carb. Clean out the fuel bowl. Remove the drain plug located on the left side of the carburetor near the base. Then, using an allen wrench (3/16 I think, but can't remember for sure, maybe 1/4") through the drain plug hole, remove the main jet. Clean the main jet and the area that the main jet screws into, and reassemble.

 

Thanks for the info guys. Since I started this thread, I've been thinking about how the tractor started and ran last fall and this spring. It ran great last fall, although I remember one incident where my son shut it off while it was hot and it flooded out when we tried to restart it. This spring I changed oil, plugs and filters before I tried to run it. Since the "tune-up" I had it running twice and it ran great. The Sears guy tried to say the governor may have failed due to lack of oil while running on slopes. The B&S engine manual says the engine can handle any angle the tractor is rated for.

I should mention a few more details about the problem. When I go to start the engine, I set the choke and throttle to full. When you look into the carb, I can see the throttle butterfly is open and the choke butterfly is closed. At this point, when I adjust the throttle, the butterfly does not move. When I turn the engine over, raw gas splashes up through the carb and flows out of the muffler. The engine will fire a couple times, then die. This is the point where the Sears guy said the throttle butterfly was snapping shut, although I haven't been able to confirm this. When I look down in the carb, I can see raw fuel in the bottom.

Does this info help you guys any further?????

Thanks again.

Rick

 

It just verifys that you have a carburetor problem. You might also want to check the float and needle and replace if needed.

 

Guys,

A local hardware store fixed my tractor for $134. It needed a carb rebuild, fuel filter, oil change (gas got in the oil) and a few other things. The guy from Sears either didn't know what he was doing or didn't want to try to fix it, so he made up a story. Regardless, I will try to get a refund from Sears.

cheese and repair guy, thank you for your advice.

 

Great! Thanks for the update, and good luck with getting your refund!