Red Max Back Pack Blower (no fire)

A neigbor dropped off his Red Max Back Pack Blower ( EB 7000 Serial 126900)complaining that it would not throttle up. (he started it here, and it would not get past idle.) I did my usual cursory fuel changes, filter cleaning, etc. When I started poking around the ignition system, I found a loose spark plug, but after putting it back together to fire it up, I could not get it to pop at all! I looked all over it for an on off switch, but all I could find was a kill switch in the fold down handle that was not the sliding variety. you press it, it kills the engine. Did I get the good luck of the neigbor getting the last fire out of a module, (or points/condenser) or is there a switch somewhere else? There is no fire, and I even went so far as to hold on to the spark plug wire and pulling the cord. (sometimes you can feel that even when it won't fire a tester gap)

 

The switch you found is the one. It could be bad, or the kill wire could be shorted somewhere. Redmax makes some good stuff, so it would be worth checking this out and getting it fixed if the rest of the unit is good. Unplug the kill wire from the coil and see if you still have no spark.