Home › Forum › Ask A Member › Martin 40 ~ 45 running issues › Reply To: Martin 40 ~ 45 running issues
Buc, Did you ever check the exhaust ports for being plugged up, or carboned up, from different fuel mixture oils, that could have been used in motor, before you got it?. Back in the day, when I was servicing outdoor equip, Lawn Boy was having issues on the D style motors. Mowers would start hard and run like your outboard motor does. Lot of people would mix car engine oil with the fuel. Mower would run fine until the exhaust ports would plug up with carbon, from using different brands of oil. The exhaust ports on the D series engine weren’t very large, so it wouldn’t take much to plug them up, big improvement when people started using 2 cycle oil with proper mixture. If my memory is correct there were three exhaust holes in block, when there was only one hole plugged up with carbon that mower never had any power or speed, let alone start, a real pain, in the arm, when they don’t start, especially when you went thru it and everything was correct.
Another problem that I encountered with those mowers, was the carb jet sizes. I repaired a mower that come from the state of Washington, ran fine their, had trouble starting in Mn, changed jet size in carb, started and ran fine. There’s another problem with engines, that drove me nuts, until fuel injection came in.
The only other thing I’ve tried, when I worked, hook up your spark testers, and whatever, start motor, turn lights completely off, and see if you can see anything arching out to frame, or losing spark, I tried that on cars in the dark when I had a miss in the engine, didn’t work all the time, but it did work. Those are some of the experience’s I had.
Gene.