Does it start with a squirt of ether into the air intake? If so, I'd
suggest a bad gasket betwen the carb and the engine. Or, a missing
gasket.

--

Christopher A. Young
You can't shout down a troll.
You have to starve them.
..

"donald girod" wrote in message
...
I have a Briggs lawn mower, solid state ignition. It runs normally
(good power, etc) once it starts, and it starts eventually, BUI...

I have to pull many, many times, and after a while the engine starts
to
fire weakly. It will fire weakly 10 or 15 times and die, each time
doing a little better. Finally, it fires weakly, doesn't die quite,
and
slowly picks up speed. Then it takes off and runs. It will restart
readily when warm, but if left even 10 minutes, it reverts to the
painful starting. The spark is strong (obviously), and I can see gas
splash up in the carb throat when I take the air cleaner off and pull
the rope. When it does start, it does NOT throw black smoke, as it
would if the carb was seriously loaded up with gas, in fact, it throws
no smoke at all, and I would bet that in fact it has been starving for
gas. Maybe.

I have seen other Briggs engines do this, and I have never figured out
what the problem has been. I have done things like take apart the
carb
and put in a carb kit (mainly, new diaphragm gasket or whatever that
thing is called), and sometimes I have "cured" the problem. But if
somebody recognizes this syndrome and can tell me what the most likely
problem is, I would surely appreciate it.