On 8/20/15 3:46 PM, Mr.E wrote:
On Thu, 20 Aug 2015 14:25:39 -0400, Arnie Goetchius
wrote:

J Burns wrote:
On 6/8/15 3:04 PM, Arnie Goetchius wrote:
I took the spark plug out and the starter turned the engine over with no
problem. Replaced with new spark plug. Also noticed what appeared to be
an excessive amount of oil in crank case so drained oil and replaced
with 42 oz of 30 W.(Briggs & Stratton 287707-1224) Started right up.
That was Sunday. Started several times during the day, all okay.

Proceeded to mow the lawn today with no problem. The acid test will be
if the starter will turn the engine over this weekend after having not
been run for 5 days. Fingers crossed!!

On motorcycles with horizontally opposed engines, I sometimes couldn't kick them
over because of hydrostatic lock. If the bike was left long enough on the side
stand, oil could seep past the rings into the cylinder. I'd remove the plug,
kick it over to blow the oil out, put the plug back in, and start.

If you had too much oil, you may have had hydrostatic lock when you left it more
than a day.

It turned out that I did have hydrostatic lock but from the gasoline, not the
oil. On the bottom of carburetor, there is a switch that is connected to the
ignition switch. When you turn off the engine, it also supposed to operate the
carburetor switch so that no more gas enters the carburetor. However, that
appears to be broken because there is a lot of gas left in the cylinder and I
can’t turn the engine over after a week.

To turn the engine over with the starter, I had to remove the spark plug first.
When I turned the engine over with spark plug out, it yielded a lot of gas
coming out of the cylinder so I figured gas was leaking into the cylinder after
I turned the engine off. So I added a manual gas shutoff valve to the gas line
and turn that off to shut the engine down when I’m done mowing. After the
engine stops, I also turn off the ignition. I let it sit for a week and just
started it up today with no problem.

I think I have solved the problem now but I thought so before so fingers
crossed!! Thanks for your tip on the hydrostatic lock.

I believe this carburetor valve is to block fuel from the main jet to
keep the vaporized gas from igniting in the muffler when you shut down.
Sounds as though you may have a float needle and seat slowly leaking
which will not matter if the fuel is shut off with your added valve.
I hope this has fixed your problem for good as well as keeping
evaporative residue from building up in the bowl over longer periods of
non-use.

Twenty years ago, I had a John Deere mower with a Kohler engine that
would shut off in use. I believe the problem was a bad electrical
connection to the fuel shutoff solenoid. IIRC, when I opened the bowl, I
found that the solenoid shut off fuel to all jets. If that's true of
the OP's engine, fuel must have been leaking past the solenoid.

I agree that a manual shutoff is a good idea.