Craftsman mower will turn over but not start

I have Craftsman riding lawnmower with a Kohl CV15S motor in it. When I turn the key the motor will turn over, I can hear it quietly sputtering like it is firing a little bit but it won't fully start. I have good gas in it, replaced the spark plug, air filter and fuel filter. It was slow to start last week but it did run. What are some things I can try to get it running?

 

Is the choke closing fully on the carburetor?

 

I just checked and the choke is fully closing.

 

To follow up on cheese, give it a teaspoon or so of gas in the carb and see if it fires.

 

So I added a bit of gas to the carb and it still didn't start. I then drained all the gas out and put brand new gas in it, and sprayed the carb down with a cleaner that was supposed to help clean it out if it had any gunk in it. After letting it sit I tried to start it up. As the starter spun it starting to putter faster but wouldn't quite start. When I turned the throttle from max, where it is supposed to be set to start, to lowest it finally started and light smoke came out of it for a while. After about 5-10 minutes the smoke was gone and it was running but if I throttled it up above half way it would sputter out and die. Any ideas on getting it to run right?

 

Still sounds like the carburetor. You sprayed the carburetor without opening it up? If so, nothing was accomplished other thn washing some dirt off.

 

The other possibility is that the carburetor is flooding the motor. First check for this is to pull the dipstick and sniff to see if you can smell gas in the crankcase. If you do it is definitely flooding and if you don't it still might be.

The second test is to remove the spark plug and crank the motor over 10 or 15 times to clear out any gas that might be in the combustion chamber. Keep in mind this is a little bit of a fire hazard so do not use incandescent work lights close to the spark plug hole or anything else that is flammable. Now replace the spark plug really quickly and see if it starts right up. If it does you were flooding.

To fix it you will need to clean the inlet needle area of the carburetor and inspect the float to ensure it is working properly and not leaking fuel into it. A manual fuel shut off valve between the gas tank and fuel filter would be a good thing for storage and you should change the oil in case it got diluted by leaking gas. If it was me and it was flooding I would probably install the $7 manual fuel shut off valve first for storage and see if that fixed it. If it runs OK in operation then it was a very small leak and this band aid solution will probably work just fine. If it sputters and dies when in use the leak was too big and needs to be fixed inside the carb.

Again, all of the above is only if it is flooding. It may not be.

 

I've been out of town For the past month and am just now getting to working on this thing again. (thank god for a polite neighbor who mowed while I was out of town) How hard would it be to take apart the carb and clean it? It is something I have never done before.

 

Depends some are harder then others.
The hard part sometimes is getting all the stuff around it off to get it off.
Once off it's a simple job.
There made so it can only go together one way.
A shut off for the fuel is fine but not going to fix the real issue.

 

So I did as advised on removing hte sparkplug and turning it over a few times. That didn't help. I figured while there, just double check the spark plug to make sure it sparked. From my test it didn't. I replaced it and still got no spark. Apparently the puttering sound I was hearing was from a whole in the exhaust and not it trying to ignite. Thinking like it was a car I thought replace the plug wires. Unfortunately it seems the plug wire is permanently attached to a part connected to the engine. Any ideas?

 

Did you ground the spark plug while checking for spark?

 

Since the cover of the motor was off as I traced the wire of the spark plug. I pulled the plug and there was a bit of gas on the plug The way I tested the spark plug was by with the wires still plugged in I touched the plug to the side of the engine block and cranked the motor. neither the gas ignited off the plug nor did I see a spark.

 

Did anything happen the last time that you ran it? Like maybe hit something with the mower? Sort of sounds like it could be a damaged flywheel key.

 

Not that I noticed. and the flywheel spins when the key is turned.

 

Unplug the kill wire from the ignition coil and check for spark again. If none, replace the coil.

 

and the winner is.... bad ignition coil. replaced it and poof it started running. Still doesn't like running at full throttle but at least one problem is solved.