WTF did lawn mower manufacturers dump the choke control?? I haven't had one in over 20 years and I do miss the manual choke. Are people that friggin dumb that a manual choke is beyond their comprehension???
Why am I so worked up? I spent 4 days, and almost a full bottle of Seafoam and Seafoam Spray trying to get an inherited lawnmower to work properly. IF this mower had a manual choke my trials and tribulations would have only lasted only 15 minutes. Friends of mine gave me a hardly used mower that sat for enough years to have all the gas in it evaporate. I knew I'd be in for some fun with it, but figured WTF. When I brought it home I poured in some fresh gas and hit the starter, yeah even has electric start, and VRMMMMMMM, she started right up. That's great I thought, shut her down, and put her away.
On Thursday I decided to use her to get to all the spots I can't reach with my zero turn machine. She started up and noticed she was running a bit rough, but still running. The fun started when I shut her down to grab a drink. When I came back, she wouldn't start, until after waiting 15 minutes. Figured the carb was junked up so decided to grab some Seafoam on my Friday trip into town, before I said uncle and bought either a carb rebuild kit or a new carb.
Got the Seafoam, both normal and spray, on Saturday, and gave her the full treatment. Started to run a little better, but still had no starting when warm. Figured more Seafoam was necessary so did another couple of treatments with improving performance, but still no warm starts. While I had the air filter off I realized that the choke wasn't closed when the engine was warm, but if I closed it with a screwdriver, she'd start warm. Eureka!! The root cause of the problem and no need to rebuild the carb!! Things were looking up!
Spent most of my rainy Sunday surfing the internet, but nothing was helping me out until one YouTube video suggested a design flaw with my Briggs & Stratton engine that caused a sticking cam. This plastic cam could be helped with some filing so I figured I was finally out of the woods.
Took her apart this AM and it turns out that the mower MFG, TroyBilt, didn't have the same cam that the YouTube video was talking about. However, it was apparent that mine was sticking too, just not in the same way as the video. I took it off and oiled the post it was mounted on. Other than that, the spring was good and it should work, but no, still got stuck. At least by this last disassembly I realized that I could get a screwdriver down a space and manually move the butterfly cam into the "Choked" position, so even though I didn't FIX it, I had a work around that would hold me over until I had to bring it in to be serviced by a professional.
Automatic Choke? We don't need no stinking Auto Choke!!!
