2084 Hard Start & Running Rough
 

Hi, thought I might get some good trouble shooting advice on this one. My 2084 is starting hard now. When I try starting it spins over fine but won't start. If I jump it to get the extra starting power, it spins over very fast and will start. Just to be clear, the battery is good and spins it over more than fast enough, but for some reason it seems to need the really fast turnover to catch.

I have spark, I have fuel, replaced the fuel pump recently. Choke butterfly is opening and closing fully.

Once running, it runs smooth at half throttle, but at higher throttle settings it coughs and sputters a bit. It doesn't die, just seems to miss at times.

I'm wondering if I have a weak ignition, like I said I have spark but maybe it's not strong enough? Curious to hear some thoughts on this.

Are you sure that both cylinders are firing. I had similar sounding symptoms and found one of my ignition modules was bad. It would fire but not all the time. It is a bit of a bear to change as you have to remove the battery and platform screws enough to flip it up. You also have to remove the top of the firewall and loosen the bottom. Then remove all the screws from the fan shroud (the bottom two are a real challenge). Then you can move the shroud just far enough to access the flywheel and the modules. Or---------
Remove the front grill, remove the engine bolts, Remove the bracket with the throttle and choke cables and the wires going to the carb, take the bolts out of the rag joint, and remove the wires to the starter and jerk out the engine. Also I found the slave wire between the modules was bad and it shut down much better with it repaired.

I'll check for spark again. I've had a series of issues, first was no fuel pumping so I replaced the fuel pump to solve that, then the fuse block with 30 amp fuse near the battery was heating up, cleaned that up. For a short while it seemed to start and run ok, but now I'm wondering if you are right, maybe weak spark or intermittant.

I'll get it running and pull one plug wire at a time to see if both are firing and if one or the other is having the intermttant miss. If I have to change a module it sounds like the engine removal method might be easier in the long run.

After changing both modules within a year of each other by not removing the engine and then having to remove the engine to replace the rear oil seal my son and I said if we have to do module work again we will pull the engine. I also had a bit of a time with my main fuse blowing. Found a dead short in the wire going to the headlights.

I was surprised how hot my main fuse was while running, surprised it wasn't blowing, but I figured it was because the fuse block was in bad shape. I cleaned it up but will probably just replace it next time I'm near it.

Pulling the engine would give me a good excuse to clean up a few other items, look at the rag joint, etc.

Another thing with my 2084 and I would suppose any of the cubs with a grease fitting in both ends of the driveshaft, DO NOT OVER GREASE. Over greasing will cause grease to be thrown all over everything. One or two shots of grease will be enough. Don't ask me how I know.

This place amazes me sometimes when people refuse to pull their engines to work on them. They will spend 4 or 5 hours doing a job that could be done in 1.5hours just because they are too intimidated to pull the engine.

AJ

I have to agree AJ. We thought it would be easier to not remove the engine but once we did it, man it was so easy to do when we finally did it.