"Hustlin' Hank" wrote in message
...
I hope I'm in the right NG.

I have a 36" exmark metro walk-behind mower. It has the Kawasaki 460v-
s14 engine. It is very hard to start.

First I dis-assembled the carb and blew out all passages. Carb bowl
looked clean and main jet was clear. Still no start.

I dis-connected the ground wire at the coil so that no safety switch
would affect it, altho I have always had spark.

I dis-assembled the carb again, this time removing the pilot jet. It
looked clean on the outside, but I blew it out the best I could. I
have a new one on order and plan on replacing it when it comes in.

I feel it is a carb problem, but I am not sure. It will start
occasionally and run great. But most of the time, it just won't
start.

It has an automatic compression release. I don't know how these work.
maybe that is the problem, I don't know. If you know, does it open the
exhaust valve a little while pull starting it?

I don't think it is timing since it runs great when it does start.

Any advise wil be helpful..........I think. :-)

Thanks,

Hank ~~~at wits end
A new spark plug will sometimes cure this problem even if the old one sparks
when removed and will run the engine. I thought for many, many years that if
a spark was present that indicated everything was fine. I learned that
intensity of spark was important and that plugs can fail to spark only when
under compression in the engine. Spark intensity accounts for a lot of the
differences in ease of starting between different engines.

Don Young