I bought a used Craftsman 46" cut with a Intek 21 hp single cylinder early last year.
From the beginning it was very hard starting, thought it was the battery .. bought a new one and it helped a little.
I would turn the key and if the battery wasn't FULLY charged it would stop against the compression stroke.
It was still a pain to start often needing my car charger/starter to get it going.
The motor calls for a 230 CCA Battery. I had bought a 300 CCA from Home Depot.
Over the winter I concluded it was a compression release issue. There is a compression release dog on the exhaust side of the cam.
I bought a cam/lifter kit a few months ago and have been waiting for warm weather.
I put it in yesterday ... same hard starting problem.
I went out today and bought a new 350 CCA battery from NAPA.
Before trying it I was topping up the charge.
I took this time to call my brother and discuss where I was at with it.
He asked if it was an OHV, I said yes. He thought maybe the rockers had come loose.
I took the head off and found the exhaust and intake rockers had .040 valve lash!
Specs call for about ..003 to .007.
I set the lash at .005 ... rolled the motor over by hand and there was my compression release bump!
It fired right up.
From the beginning it was very hard starting, thought it was the battery .. bought a new one and it helped a little.
I would turn the key and if the battery wasn't FULLY charged it would stop against the compression stroke.
It was still a pain to start often needing my car charger/starter to get it going.
The motor calls for a 230 CCA Battery. I had bought a 300 CCA from Home Depot.
Over the winter I concluded it was a compression release issue. There is a compression release dog on the exhaust side of the cam.
I bought a cam/lifter kit a few months ago and have been waiting for warm weather.
I put it in yesterday ... same hard starting problem.
I went out today and bought a new 350 CCA battery from NAPA.
Before trying it I was topping up the charge.
I took this time to call my brother and discuss where I was at with it.
He asked if it was an OHV, I said yes. He thought maybe the rockers had come loose.
I took the head off and found the exhaust and intake rockers had .040 valve lash!
Specs call for about ..003 to .007.
I set the lash at .005 ... rolled the motor over by hand and there was my compression release bump!
It fired right up.
