I recently inherited an old 24" Atco mower.. in good nick overall but it wont start.. its getting a spark but it is very faint..I have taken off the flywheel and cleaned and adjusted the points,everything seems to be working as it should but as I said poor spark. Any ideas anyone?Could it be the condenser?how do I test it?
Sounds like a stupid question but is the petrol fresh ? It only last about a month if I lay my bike up for the winter.
I take it youve got a new lug on there. it will probably be the ht lead going to the plug. these tend to get knackered quite quickly on mowers as they are never serviced as often as they should be.
wath out, old atco with villiers engine can suffer with coil break down under load. when the plug is under compression the voltage required to jump the gap is less, this means that a spark may happen up inside the plug where it wont ignite the mixture.
If this has one of the old Villiers engines, beware of the engine timing. There was no key way on the fly wheel, so it could spark with the piston in any position. There should be timing marks, but if these have become erroded over time, stick a screwdriver in the plug hole to establish TDC. Dependant upon if this is the 2 stroke or 4 stroke, will mean you could be 180 deg out, so watch out! I would like to reiterate the comment about old fuel being no good. Even a poor spark should ignite fresh petrol.