Darn, I would have bet the farm on a bad coil...been there, somebody here
figured it out for me. It seems a bad coil can put out a great spark until
under pressure. Bury chicken guts in the back yard under a full moon and
chant something ominous.


"Nick Hull" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Wayne Cook wrote:

On Sat, 08 Apr 2006 21:08:26 GMT, Nick Hull
wrote:

In article ,
JR North wrote:

Sounds like there are several things going on. As John said, it is not
unknown for a cracked plug to fire fine in open air, but short out and
not fire under compression. As Carl said, you prolly have carburation
issues also. As Ken said, #50 ain't gonna cut it; but as you
said.....if
you get it lit and blow it out, this may improve. Replace the plug and
start it on starting fluid. If it lights and runs briefly, fix the
carb.
If it won't light, tear it down.
JR
Dweller in the cellar

The plug is NEW, properly gapped at .030". Also tried plug gapped at
.020" and .010". Doesn't light.

Doesn't mean anything now days unfortunately. It's not unheard of to
find 3-4 bad plugs in a box.

I did try it with 2 new plugs, plus some older one I'd cleaned up.

Tear it down and look for what? It ran fine until one day it wouldn't
start - I thought I fixed THAT problem.

I'm betting ignition problem from what you describe. If it fires
with the extra gap in the plug that usually indicates a shorted plug
but it could be something else nearly shorted. I had a Honda engine
one time that drove me nuts. It fired fine with the plug, and it fired
fine on my spark checker. The only clue was that it didn't fire fine
with my spark checker inline with the plug. Usually I don't have any
problems with that. It turned out to be a bad coil.

I agree it 'looks' like ignition problems. But I have a NEW coil and it
puts out big blue sparks. Tell me about the spark checker you put
inline with the plug; is it just another spark gap? I have tried a
spark gap in series with the plug, but the engine is designed to fire
everytime the piston goes up, wether compression or exhaust, and I
cvan't distinguish between the 2.

--
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