On May 7, 4:50*pm, Joseph Gwinn wrote:
I have a lawnmower and a snowblower, both from Honda, and both are hard
to start at the beginning of their season. *The lawnmower is the worst
offender, by far, so I'll focus on it.

I would always get the mower going, but it could take all day the first
time. *After that initial difficult start, starting was reasonably easy
for the rest of the season.

I have heard various theories on why this is so:

1. *Gas varnished up over the winter. *I took the carb apart - clean as
a whistle. *Nor did gas stabilizer make any difference.

2. *Water (from condensation) in the gas. *Hmm, hard to do with the 10%
alcohol in all gas available these days.

3. Volatiles evaporating from the gas in the tank over the winter. *
Also, various stories saying that winter gas and summer gas are
different, the difference being how volatile the gas is, with winter
needing more volatile gas than summer. *Hmm, this could be at least part
of an answer.

So, this year, when I first tried to start the lawnmower for the summer,
had the usual problems. *Tried the usual dodges, like leaving the mower
out in the sun to warm up, and putting fresh gas in the tank, but no go.

Volatiles? *Ether! *So, I gave it a squirt of starting fluid. *

Started right up on the first try, and subsequent starts were of normal
difficulty, probably because all the old gas was by then flushed out of
the carb.

So, theory 3 seems to be correct.

And a dash of Naptha in the gas may do the same.

. Joe Gwinn

Here is what I found. One of my mowers has a Briggs and Stratton
engine with a plastic diaphram carb and a primer. I have rebuilt the
carb cleaned the tank, changed the plug and the oil and it is a pig to
start cold. Once warm however it restarts easy.

My other two mowers have Tecumseh engines. I added a fuel shut off
valve and an inline filter below the carb to trap any water. With
clean carbs these start cold really well. 5 squirts on the primer and
away she goes. Unless of course I have run it dry then it takes a bit
2-3 attempts to start.

Champion has a new plug out now touted as the "one tug plug" more
resistant to fouling and a more focused spark is the claim. About 2
bucks more than the standard plug, might be worth a try.

One of these days I am going to modify an engine to make the spark
timing adjustable. I suspect that a little more retard on the spark
will make it easier to start, after all it worked on the model T.

Naptha in the tank would probably make the gas more volatile, but it
would also cause pre-ignition of the fuel and that would be awfully
rough on these little engines with no bearings, so you might need a
start tank and a run tank, not easy if you have a tank mounted carb.

Roger Shoaf