Small engine trouble.

[dodge man]

It’s a Briggs 5 hp on an old Troy Built tiller. It was given to a friend and hadn’t run since 1982. We cleaned and coated the fuel tank, took the carb apart and got a new diagram and gasket. I think the carb is called a pulse jet. It starts easy enough and runs ok without a load. Turn the tiller on and you can tell it’s not quite running right. It might run for several minutes or it might stumble and die. It almost seems like if you just move it around in circles with the tiller on the movement will make it stumble some. Put it in the dirt and make it work it slows down and eventually dies.

Any ideas?

 

[Richard001]

Do you have the B&S engine model number ?

Have you checked for compression ?

Is the spark bright ?

Richard

 

[Thomas]

Any signs black soot around the head gasket.

 

[dodge man]

The number is 130292. One thing I should add is the engine probably has less than 10 hours on it and maybe less than 5 hours. This guy bought the thing in about 1980 and used it a couple of times and it has sat until he gave it to my buddy a week ago.

I don’t see a sign of a blown head gasket. I sprayed around the carb with cleaner looking for a leak and didn‘t hear a change in the engine note.

 

[flyerdan]

Did you clean any of the carb parts, especially the jets? It sounds like it's having fuel delivery issues, and small engines are especially fussy over partially blocked jets.

 

[dodge man]

I think I got the carb cleaned out good. I shot carb cleaner through all the passages. There was places it was pretty gunked up. The bottom of the fuel tank looked like it had a quarter inch of maple syrup dried in the bottom.

 

[RandyT]

With an L head of that vintage I would be looking at the Valve clearances since they like to float the valves.

 

[dodge man]

I wondered about the valves, maybe not sealing well.

 

[oldballs]

I have a couple 8 HP B/S of about that vintage ('70 s) on Sears rototillers. Maybe yours have a glass bowl under the gas tank. It has a brass screen. Old gas gum settles in it. I'll bet you already looked there. Maybe a shot of Seafoam will help too. If you get it running you'll have one hellava Pony I think TroyBuit called it.

Cheers,
Mike

 

[dodge man]

Yes it is called a pony. It was something like $700 back then. No glass bowl, it pick up fuel with a long tube into the gas tank.