# Yard Machine won't turn over all the way



## Tim S.

My son was given a "98" MTD 14 1/2 H.P. yard machine with B&S engine. It sat in a barn for about a year. His friend said it needed a new starter, so we installed a starter and relay or solenoid and came to find out ignition switch was bad also. In the meantime before putting any more money into it for now we tried by -passing relay switch. The engine turns over by hand so It's not locked up, seems to have good compression, battery was charged but it only will turn like one revolution. We thought maybe battery had a bad cell so we tried jumping the starter from truck battery with heavy duty jumper cables but same thing one quick grunt like not enough power to keep turning the starter. We also tried rotating the flywheel by hand to start on the down stroke. Fuel is a non issue at this point, plug has spark just trying to get engine to turn over at this point. Any suggestions would be appreciated.


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## Live Oak

Welcome to Tractor Forum Tim! 

If you have a shorted cell in the battery, jumping it will not work as the voltage from the jumper cables is shunted to ground by the short. Try removing the battery altogther and attach the jumper cables directly to the battery cable leads on the mower or replace the battery and see what happens.


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## Bill Kapaun

Engine Model & Type numbers are USEFUL, so we know WHICH Briggs it is.
IF it's an OHV engine, check the valve adjustment. If the lash is too much, the compression release doesn't work.


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## Tim S.

Engine model 287707 type 1224-e1 yard machine 13am675g062 It's an overhead cam, will try to adjust balves this week sometime. We were jumping right to the starter with heavy gauge jumper cables, Thanks for the help so far, Tim.


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## Tim S.

Okay tried adjusting the valves, took valve cover off turned flywheel to 1/4 past tdc. loosened rocker arm nut on intake and exhaust valves stuck feeler gauge in intake at .004 and exhaust .006 snuged both rocker nuts if I did this right it didn't make a difference on turning the motor over, any other advice is welcome.


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## jd2355

Hi ! 
did the new starter come with a new drive gear? My wife's dad's cub cadet with a briggs had a bad starter drive gear with some teeth chewed up on it causing the same sort of problem, the drive gear wouldn't mesh properly with the flywheel and cause the engine and starter to lock up,the gear was only plastic. Good luck.


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## Bill Kapaun

> _Originally posted by Tim S. _
> *Okay tried adjusting the valves, took valve cover off turned flywheel to 1/4 past tdc. loosened rocker arm nut on intake and exhaust valves stuck feeler gauge in intake at .004 and exhaust .006 snuged both rocker nuts if I did this right it didn't make a difference on turning the motor over, any other advice is welcome. *


Maybe a matter of semantics, but did you turn the flywheel so that the *PISTON* was 1/4" past TDC?
Yhat's NOT the same as the flywheel 1/4" past....


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## Tim S.

Took plug out used screwdriver to use as a gauge turned flywheel till piston came closer to plug opening then watched screwdriver stop marked screwdriver turned till screwdriver went 1/4" back in, stopped then adjusted valves. I think I established tdc right, not sure if I adjusted valves right that part seemed to easy to me. Thanks, Tim


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## chrpmaster

> _Originally posted by Tim S. _
> *Took plug out used screwdriver to use as a gauge turned flywheel till piston came closer to plug opening then watched screwdriver stop marked screwdriver turned till screwdriver went 1/4" back in, stopped then adjusted valves. I think I established tdc right, not sure if I adjusted valves right that part seemed to easy to me. Thanks, Tim *


Did you verify that this was the compression stroke so both intake and exhaust valves were closed? Obviously it would make a difference if it was the exhaust stroke and the exhaust valve was (or should have) opened.

Andy


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## Live Oak

> _Originally posted by Tim S. _
> *Engine model 287707 type 1224-e1 yard machine 13am675g062 It's an overhead cam, will try to adjust balves this week sometime. We were jumping right to the starter with heavy gauge jumper cables, Thanks for the help so far, Tim. *


Did you remove the batter from the system by removing the battery cable from the battery? If the battery has a shorted cell, it can draw down the voltage even if you jump direct to the starter. The current will take the path of least resistance. This may not be the issue it sounds but best to eliminate altogether.

In the past I have had problems with Honda overhead valve engines in which the valve stuck in the open position after prolonged setting up. I fixed one opening up the valve cover and working the valves up and down manually until they were freed up. The second time I tried a shot of ether and the ignition of the ether pushed the valves shut and it fired right up. 

If you have fuel, air, and good spark; the only things left is compression. Have you run a compression check yet? 

A shot of ether may get you started but confirming good compression would be a good thing to verify.


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## Tim S.

Allright went over the valve adjustment one more time, I can seem to get the intake side adjusted but the exhaust side when I go to tighten the rocker arm nut I end up with about .016 Doesn't seem like much leeway on adjustment or somethings worn out inside, any more sugestions on what is wrong or what I am doing wrong. Got a new battery, tried turning flywheel both ways to get tdc to make sure I was going on compression stroke.


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## bwood

I came across this post during a search for something else, but here is some things I did to solve this issue. I have the exact same tractor model and engine model. I bought it used and it did this when I bought it. I assumed a weak starter and just delt with it. Last year I had a little fire and have spent the last few days putting stuff back together. My fire was from fuel in the oil from an overflowing carb. I noticed that while I was putting it all back together when I would start it, it would hang and make a sizzling noise coming from the frame. The sizzling was from the oil frying on the frame from a recent oil change. This made me think that the gound path from the engine to the battery was rusty and was acting like a wire of too small guage. I ran a ground cable from the starter mounting bolt all the was back to the battery. Now it spins over effortlessly. This has worked well since I did it, but today it did it again, but this time I believe it was due to a hydrolock situation in the combustion chamber. As I stated earlier may carb over flows. I turned the fuel off and put the throttle wide open and cranked it. It fired right up. I am going to rebuild the carb this weekend and check the operation of the shutoff solenoid at the bottom of the carb. I hope this helps.


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## Frydaddy

The Valve adjustment fixed this problem for me, don’t know if this is technically correct but this is what I did after watching [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjzX-PUjKmo&feature=related]YOU TUBE[/ame] . 
My problem was from a different situation though. I had a 12.5hp b&s that the rod broke in (289707-0154-01). A neighbor had a 14.5 I/C OHC silent (287707-1224-E1) I bought for a twenty. I was confused with the solenoid on the bowl but determined that I could just use the mount screw from the 12.5 bowl and ditch the thing. Hooked up the ign wire and the 2 wire QD, other than that it was a direct swap. He even had the throttle and choke cables on it! Ok motor in and just like above would only crank over one turn (ish). It would try harder jumped to the car battery but still just so. All other things checked I read in on the valve settings causing this (here, thank you) my valves were both over .020! Valves adjusted per the video and specs from manual downloaded from B&S website, easy, and all is well as far as cranking goes. At 1 am and no muffler and my 2 babies sleeping just a chunk of drywall away, I kept the spark plug unhooked. The plug does have spark and I did see a fuel fog out the exhaust when it cranked, so hopes are high. I will see if it runs when people are not sleeping. 
Oh and I painted that old Lowes blue (MTD 1995 Lawnmower) away with black, front is red and flamed back red/orange/yellow with a blue pinstripe. 
I think she wanted a larger engine to go with the paintjob. :driving:


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