My mower won't start, help?

Question

4 HP ,Briggs & Stratton. I

t backfired hard and blew a puff of white smoke out of the exhaust and would NOT start back up.

It was too dark out to troubleshoot.

There was fuel in the tank.

Any suggestions/ tips?

Answer 1

White smoke? Water makes steam. I'd say you have rain water in your gas tank. Drain, tip, empty, refill with fresh gas. Pull many times, now mow that grass before the neighbors complain.

Answer 2

It could be some water got into the fuel tank. White smoke is water, black smoke is your fuel (gas) and blue smoke is oil.
Maybe the best thing to do is to get the fuel out of the tank and put new fuel in the tank.

Answer 3

Get a can of "Aerosol Starting Fluid" from your
favorite auto-parts store or Hardware store and
spray into the mower's air intake for two seconds;
and then immediately try to start the mower...
If the engine runs for a few seconds and then stops,
you know that it is NOT getting fuel. If the engine does
not fire at all, then you know it is not getting "spark".

Answer 4

It does sound like either a valve stuck or the key in the flywheel has sheared. You can remove the cowling, and the nut for the flywheel and see if the key is intact. If the exhaust valve is stuck open you won't have any compression.

Answer 5

did you hit something with the blade? sounds like the key way has sheared, or a valve is stuck, check the oil level, remove the spark pulg, slowley turn it over while holding a finger over the plug hole, does it push you finger off ? if not a valve is stuck,
dont use starting fluid on it, it may cause it to explode, or blow a hole thru the piston,

Answer 6

After you've done what Doug Pluto suggests - last of all take it to a mower repair centre - they will let you know the problem and probably fix it real cheap - Or let you know its stuffed and time to buy new one.

Answer 7

You could have a leaking head gasket or a ignition problem causing your ignition to spark before it should ~~