[LoanGuy]

OK, so my mower has sat for some time now (B&S 18 hp twin) and recently I've tried to get the bad boy running. Not knowing much (if anything) about this engine, I've taken off much of the body, rebuilt the starter, replaced the plugs and cleaned out the carb. The engine turns over great, but there doesn't seem to be getting any spark. The most interesting part is that I took off one of the plug wires, touched it to the metal frame to see if a spark was occuring and the engine started right up. Once I take the plug wire off of the frame, the engine dies. No idea if this is hurting the mower or what but can anyone tell me what in the heck is happening here or what I should do?
Thanks,

 

[30yearTech]

Possibly a bad ground to your ignition module. Remove the module from the mounting posts, clean the surface of the coil laminations and the mounting stems on the cylinder and reinstall the coil assembly. Be sure to set the air gap between the coil and the flywheel magnets, the easiest way to do this is to place a business card between the coil laminations and the magnets, loosen up the coil and let the magnet draw the laminations against the business card. Then tighten up the coil assembly and rotate the flywheel to remove the card.

 

[LoanGuy]

Thank you for the response 30yearTech. I'll give that a try and let you know the result.

 

[LoanGuy]

30yearTech :thumbsup:

Just wanted to let you know that your suggestion on the ignition module having a bad ground was my problem. I cleaned off the mounts and contacts and bingo! It started right up. I think now I'm having some carb problems so I took that totally apart and found a ton of white gunky material. Put it all back together and still seems to be running quite rough. After running for a while, (having to mess with the choke open and closed to stay running) there is a good amount of gas in the carb, seems like there is too much going in for some reason along with the smell of gas. Any suggestions there?

 

[30yearTech]

You may have some water in your fuel, did you drain your tank and fill with fresh fuel? Fuel older then around 6 weeks old can start causing start and running problems with these engines.