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Collection, Preservation and Display of Old Lawn Mowers

Stalling when blades are engaged

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Dear Forum,

I did today start my 1948 14" Atco mower with the intention of mowing the lawn. The engine fires up nicely and ticks over however, when i engaged the blades to cut the grass the mower just ground to a halt. The problem appears to be as soon as the blades are engaged and they start to cut the engine just splutters out. 

Can anyone provide any advice please?

Regards,

Andy

Forums

wristpin Sun, 15/04/2018

Possibilities.

Fuel starvation / weak mixture

Partially seized cutting cylinder bearings or "stiff " chains.

Cylinder adjusted too hard onto the bottom blade.

Trying to cut too much grass in one go.

 

 

Atco Andy Sat, 21/04/2018

Hi Alex,

in a word no. I have cleaned out the carb, checked the fuel hose and insured that there is no obstruction between the fuel tank and the cylinder. When I start it up now it just splutters out even without the blades being engaged. The only thing I have not tried is fresh fuel.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. 

Andy

 

wristpin Sat, 21/04/2018

In that case, I'm inclined to think that if it fires on the existing fuel, the problem lies elsewhere. I would recheck the carb and make sure that it is absolutely clean. Failing that I would start to suspect that the ignition is breaking down. The first thing to check is the plug followed by the plug cap and then the contact breaker points - clean and correctly gapped: followed by the 1950s coil and condenser showing their age.

I've recently been through a run of machine suffering from "tired" condensers!