Craftsman LT2000 rider backfiring when starting, will it run? (part 1)

[Music] all righty all so we are moving on to the next mower the last riding mower that I did completed was this troy-bilt as long as this craftsman right here is turns out to be a good mower this is part huh give you a little back story real quick this is a part of a lot of for riding mowers that I bought for $200 this is the first one and the best one save the Dube what looks like the best first and then do what looks like the worst last yeah we'll see if that philosophy carries over usually the best ones end up being the worst and the worst ones end up being the best ones sometimes but these the other three that I bought that one right there's basically just a motor hopefully to put on this wizard twelve and a half the weed eater is basically completed need some steer and work so I think we're gonna start with this one I'll give you all a backstory on or just a snap some of the backstory I don't know who bought it or anything like that 18 horsepower Briggs Craftsman LT mm made in I think I misspoke whenever I talked about this morning you hear the water in the seat to all those seats not that bad this maiden so it's a nine one seven which means it's made by a yp5 11 of those sevens this mower is about thirteen years old cosmetically apart from the tires that don't have a lot of tread on but they aren't rip the shreds and the hold air so if I have to I put a tube in them the back ones look good 18 horas Briggs in tech so it's got the pressure lube with the oil filter I don't know sometimes these things are bad for compression release issues this one seems to be a lot more tolerant than the troy-bilt over there that uh seem like the cam loads or a little worn on although they're not too bad seems to turn over pretty easily it's not blown up that's what I always check whenever I go find a riding mower make sure they have compression not blown up I think that gas cap actually is oh boy actually let me go grab some pliers actually I got the gas cap here okay I hate even seeing this gas tank look at that that's like water in the gas to the max right there I'm gonna have to clean that out actually it doesn't smell terrible I doubt it'll run on that gas and I don't know how long this thing's been sitting check the oil it was a little dark but it's still good the air filter don't really have high hopes for ya the air filter will need to replace some but that's again not a big deal you always bet on having to do service items like air filters and stuff like that yeah that one's trashed enough to where I need to replace it so what I'm gonna do now to first start this thing off I'm gonna wash it yeah I just give it a nice little tube a little tune-up kit less than 20 bucks we'll see what the carb situation looks like as well see if this thing will crank what I'm gonna do first off yes we know well I guess two other things one I don't know if the brakes need work they seem like they kind of stuck the other one is the deck is the blades are turned on all the time which is a notorious problem with craftsmen's it's not that big of a deal it's laying about 20 bucks in parts to get all that for place if I need to replace any of it at all it's just you know kind of frozen stuck there so I'll replace that pulley just need a little bit of Lube but the spindles look okay so yeah there's the synopsis I'm gonna give it give it a good wash before I start working on because this thing is absolutely nasty it's been sitting under on cedar / pine trees for a little while so we'll give it a good little wash and then we will see this in a much nicer light here in just a second alright so I've put a new battery in it here I had one that I thought was good I think it's about seven year olds and seven years old it finally bit the dust on me so I have the cover bolts off I took the hood off is just you know taking it off of this tube bracket since I'm unplugging the headlight bezel there the plug for the headlights and we're gonna do a mouse chip here let's see what we have I don't think we have one under this one I may be wrong though this is kind of like a secondary cover to a primary cover there just gotta get off the air thing there just a little bit of pine straw and clean it off with my hands I think but you can see there's a little bit of oil buildup on the top here from I don't know if it got run hot or you know it could be any not run hot but I've been running hard it could be any sort of issue or whatnot other than that I don't get at least a couple pieces up on straw out here other than that the fins look relatively clean I'm sure that most of this punch draw will blow out whenever I crank it up neither blow out or burn off one of the two but tell us that over here got a battery in it the gas in it I'll shake all the gas it smells good it might have some water in it but necessarily seeing it doesn't look bad bad it just kind of depends on how bad the gas is under the surface there carb mousse fine Chuck moves fine I'm still curious as to why this mower needed worked already guess it was probably the probably the deck froze on it because these cables and the deck pulleys and whatnot are pretty bad about doing that but don't get me started free ready we're gonna see if we can get a thing to crank up for us here very good I'm trial that starting fluid first it does have good a good amount oil in it so I am wondering that this right here is stuck [Music] something up there let's see if this works [Music] so it's spraying something up there it doesn't seem like it's getting any spark though well if it could be a plug or if it could be that ones that's not bad one do be careful when you pull those plugs off you don't want the wire to come out of the boot there don't take this plug off and see how bad it looks let me get the tools I'll take the plug out we'll look at it and I'll catch back up with you then all right so the spark plug goes a little very I cleaned it off some and it wasn't getting spark originally but now you see it's getting spark so I know if the gases too old in this which is very likely he might have to drain the tank out or if it the intermittent spark just wasn't allowing it to fire since it probably hasn't run a few years so I'm gonna put the plug back in and I'll catch back up we'll give this another try here all right here we go try not to it's Tom go ahead and get us some starting fluid that way I know that the good stuff is reaching down there shouldn't you know out of that can [Music] wonder if the timing is off it almost don't sound like the timing may be off for sure I think the timing might be off on it because the obviously I saw it backfire through the intake there and so I'm gonna take the carb off and we're gonna give them a look at that I might actually just spray some directly spray some fluid directly into the intake outside of the carb to see if it'll backfire doing that just to see sometimes they do this after they haven't run in a while too so we'll see if house sheared flywheel key or anything of the like all right so I've gotten to this point very easy to get to there's this little 90l 90-degree elbow attaches onto the carburetor here they'll probably sell it it it's taken off by 2 7/16 inch nuts there's two eight millimeter kind of recessed nuts with these screws here that screw into this and that gets me to this point I have taken also I have taken this plug off it's for the anti backfire still annoyed I have also taken the fuel line off and I'm gonna take some of the fuel down here and sample it if not drain out of the entire gas tank I'm gonna take this linkage off here I'll purge all right here and it's just a matter of getting the carb off a little spring plugged off with it yes does it smell bad might be some water on it it's also water will also do cause with the backfire just like like it was doing I'm gonna drain a little bit oh yeah there's a ton of water in this I figured so I just want to give a crap which are the wallet in the car and I'm just curious I don't want to make the neighbors mad or anything oh great neighbors I get everybody concerned sometimes all right so it's backfiring still so I think it was time to check the flywheel key on this I guess so there's some oil and stuff caked up on it I sprayed this straight down in here and you heard it trying fire trying fire and then backfired usually whenever I take them in taking stuff out of it if it does that then I usually means it's probably a flywheel key so oh these aren't too bad to do honestly I really not hoping that it comes off easily but the next thing to do take off these four star bits I'll give us access to the flywheel and there's also two star bits in there to take off the flywheel fan and then we'll take the flywheel off we're going to inspect the flywheel key I'll get to the point where I get to the flywheel and then I'll uh rejoin oh well it was backfiring so much when it started I was thinking that the flywheel key was bad that's a good thing it doesn't really take too long to inspect the flywheel key on these Briggs overhead valves if you check it here as you can see the flywheel key looks great it's in the groove it's we're in good shape when it comes to that so let let me just fiddle around with this thing I might try another spark plug just to see if it'll behave I just think I just hate having it backfire back all the time really careful cause a lot of noise that should be good for the flywheel key fob building bolts scuse me no thanks I just might just try and crank it every once or twice more I just hate that just really it went backfires like it does cuz it's wild and hmm I'll just shot a flame you'll see that wonder if that spark plugs not doing what it's supposed to we'll try the plug real quick it's probably got some residual water and stuff in there so I'm just gonna try and blow it out see if that helps anything because it's trying to fire it's just not so let's see what's going on with it alright so I know it's getting fire and I know it's getting fuel and it's trying to crank but it's shootin y'all somethin last clip it's shooting flames out the back so it's not it's not hitting at the right time or the valves are sort of adjustment it won't crank I don't know which one which one is the case I'm gonna take the valve cover off here I'm gonna inspect it real quick and see how bad it is hopefully it's not too bad well actually hopefully they are out of alignment and that way I can adjust the valves and put the valve cover back on and temporarily and hopefully see if it'll fire like that I just think it has to purge some of the water out of the system I don't know just kind of shot in the dark right now very interesting though I really seen it like shootin flames out the intake very much with the flywheel key being bad or with the flywheel key being good scuse me so let's keep looking alright so I'm still trying to figure this out the valves could not be any more perfect honestly you see a little bit of residue around the intakes I wonder if there's something going on with that or if that's just dirty where it's just had dirty oil and stuff I don't know we can probably find out here before long no no you run it without the valve cover off I might try and crank this thing without the valve cover on just see if I can at least get it do you know turn over and fire I mean it's not running out of options but ideas here thousand spec there's a little like I said a little bit of residue on the intake valve there so I don't know one of the valve seats is gone or something of that nature it doesn't look like it I hate to tear into this thing just to find out that I just needed to crank it over a little bit I'm gonna do a little more pondering and I'll see if I can make any progress here and I'll catch back up with you I'm just saying alrighty oh so I did a little research and as you can tell you can see where there's a little residue on the intake valve here which most likely means that there's something getting past the intake valve on the intake stroke I don't know if it's valve seats I don't know if it's dirty valves that's causing it to stick now one thing that I did see whenever I did looking to because I took went ahead and finished taking the intake off here I'll show you if I can just if y'all can see it I don't know if y'all can see down in there it's hard to get the light and the camera into the action if you know what I mean but there is a lot of carbon buildup on that intake valve there is I don't think I don't think the timing is off because it's trying to is trying to fire and every time it tries to fire backfires I will check the fire Wilke one more time to see if that is the culprit I will actually pull the flywheel off this time see if that is the culprit I would actually prefer it's the flywheel key other than the valves cuz then I got to take the head off and all that and well it's not going to be the worst thing in the world it's not gonna be the most fun but we'll get we'll get to it you know so I'm gonna catch back up with y'all whenever I get the flywheel off if it is the key you'll see that if not just see me taking the head off this all right so I am all the indications are that the flywheel key is good I don't see it feared or anything it looks great all the indications are to me that this engine on the inside is extremely dirty with like caked up you know sludge in this and I kind of leaky intake valve and coffee call it leaky or if it's sticking is what really it doesn't cause concern from really is leading me to the head here and hope taking the head off and looking inside the engine hopefully it's hopefully it's dirty ins I don't know it's a little bit dirty in there but I wanted to be kind of you know I wanted to be kind of dirty because the rehab a good reason for it to be back there I like it is like I said read a little bit on the forums and stuff like that and that's the what it is indicating so we will see if that is the case of so I'll get a little you know get some brake clean and clean it all out scrub it all out put it back together again taking a head off in that big of a deal it's just a little more involved with taking the flywheel off however that flywheel is rested on not rested on there but it's not there these aren't very easy to get off without a flywheel puller and by gosh I probably need to go about one but that's beside the point I'm gonna pull the head off here it's just a bunch of half inch bolts if you use an impact it's a little bit easier you have to take the spark plug out as well over here so I'm in the process of doing that I'll remove the head when I get the hit off will look inside and see what we got alright so the hits off again that wasn't that bad okay bill light we're gonna look inside the cylinder which there's some dirt and meth in there but there's no scoring in the cylinder nothing of note look inside the valve where the valve rods are not too bad if we move over here to the valve cover so I move over to the valve cover again not too bad although there's a lot of carbon buildup right here on the where the valves are and where it seats out so I don't know if that has anything to do with it or not if we turn it on this side you can see like I said there's a little bit of you can see where the intakes been leaking a little bit just cuz of old oil and stuff says more hasn't really been it's most kind of been neglected from what I can tell so what I'm gonna do hopefully to eliminate any and all possibilities I don't see any problems with the head gasket or anything although it did split I'll just put it back together and if it doesn't leak then it'll be fun if it does and I'll put a new one on there that's not a big deal I'm just gonna take a wire brush and just kind of clean all this off all this residue off and hopefully that will allow the valves to seat properly and put it back together and see if we can get it to run right like I said I don't think it's a timing issue because the camp the compression lobes on the camera just fine unless something happened to it a skip teeth and the on the inside of the engine which I hope it didn't because I don't want to have to tear that tear this thing apart but we'll see like I said will clean this up and we'll see it what we have here okay so I was able to get the valve spring off again you just have your little not your tap it but I guess you're in peace and then you have these two split pieces here fufu don't lose them inside the head KC yep they're flimsy little things too little split pieces you push in gives you the valve and so now I've actually got it look in to where I can see the valve here and so what I might do is I'm gonna take the valve can take the valve out of the front here do that at this point yes you can pull the valve out you say it got most of the residue and stuff cleaned off of it so that's good the inside of this we're gonna clean off the inside of that valve a little bit the ring around it looks good overall so I'm gonna work on cleaning this a little bit just give it a little just a little clean and see if that helps matters I like I said I think it's just sticking a little bit so any little things probably gonna help us out here all right so I go let's cleaned up I got the valve cleaned up a little bit doesn't feel harsh or anything like that I've got the head cleaned up good both sides I worked on the intake valve right there get most of that residue cleaned off so now what I'm gonna do I'm gonna put this well spring back on hopefully that's not gonna be too much fun here I've got some tools or something for this somewhere I just got to find them and then we will put this thing back together and see if it won't backfire anymore all right so I took the Corrib off the car looks good actually there was a little bit of gunk down in the bottom of it but none of the holes are plugged very clean up top so I'm happy about that probably just run a wire through it real quick just to make sure probably gonna end up for the night and pick it back up when there's daylight but the issue I'm having right now is it still sheet and firing out the carburetor or out the intake valves I've adjusted they were perfectly still are perfect actually took the intake valve off and cleaned around the intake valve and I did get it to hit and run for a couple of seconds on starter fluid once every other time it's just backfiring out the intake obviously this is not the most ideal way to try and test and run run it lower but I at least do have it doing that now so what I might try to do just to see if I can get it to work is put everything back on I see if I can get it to start the way that it is if I can get it to start I think if I can get it to start and run I can throw a mic conversing seafoam in the fuel I might just dump a lot of it in there and just let it run it and clean it out because it needs to be cleaned out but that's kind of where I'm out I'm gonna end it for the night I'm going to put it all back together and I will end after I put it all back together we'll try and start it and then I'll in part one of this okay well we are on the next day here so here's my plan of attack just from I post an Instagram post and you'll see I'm the Instagram post and this video will probably be you know a couple of at least a good month it's a month and a half behind just because I'm that four hit on videos at this point but been talking with mowers and blowers Henry up in Long Island he commented saying that it's probably still just a bunch of water in the fuel still water in the cylinder and stuff like that I think I'm think he's right I just think that this thing is just being stubborn that it's just you know hasn't run in a little while and so it's um it's just not doing what it needs to do is it's just it's almost kind of like you know bringing something back to life after a few years you're gonna get a lot of coughing spitting and whatever and I think that that's what's happening with this so what I'm gonna do hopefully I don't regret it I drained all the gas is not the best but it's it smells fun it's not bad by any means there's water in the bottom of it I trained some of that out so I'm gonna go ahead I've got all the valves and stuff back right and I'm gonna just foot for the purposes of trying to get this thing running I'm gonna mock up do the valve cover put the valve cover back on I'm gonna put everything else back on including the air filter and all the engine housing and stuff like that you can see there's a little bit of them problem vacuumed out there's pine needles real quick but apart from that inside of the motor looks pretty good I don't know why it didn't get it washed out I'm gonna vacuum it put everything back on including the carburetor the whole air filter and whatnot hopefully that'll mitigate the backfiring issue because as y'all heard it I did get it to crank over and run just for a couple of seconds so let me get my box of parts so just kind of leave everything in shambles in the garage last night cuz I knew it was coming right back out to it after work today valve cover goes back on with the 10 mil bolts I'll take it back off and reseal it because it's obviously leaking pretty bad intake to 10 mils connects to the car which of these long eight millimeter bolts and then what else it's the carburetor and then the little elbow goes on and then you put the elbow on and then we'll get the cover on so I'm gonna do all that off-camera just because it's kind of universal I'll catch up with y'all once they get everything back on cuz this videos getting lengthy and I want y'all to see it run just as much as I do all right so we're gonna sit here and try it like I said I am very puzzled and it what will be very nice is that you know getting the fuel-air mix right and having all that stuff back on calls it the start hopefully it doesn't backfire so much that it blows the cover off I got the cover screwed down and everything I just didn't put a little mesh flywheel guard back on it but far from there who knows let's see what how if it even tries the store okay awesome that's good drives good all the way scroll the best out of the Tucker stop so again wanting good y'all happy with that not too greasy for the end this very a little hard to turn all right let's turn it down thank leaf liable down pretty low all right Syd running and I think you'll hurt it back y'all heard it pop him back through the air filter there whenever I did pulled it up real quick I think and I want to say I just think it needs some runtime I want to run it too long with the current oil that it's got in it as you can see I've still got a ton of smoke coming off of the exhaust there from the oil uses oil filters in bad shape so I'll impart one here as I always like to do with a running lawnmower and yeah so it's good I threw this question out on Instagram date of filming gosh cam here or what day it is I'm filming this right in the end of January so if you're following me on Instagram you saw that I was starting to work on this this is the 29th I'm filming it this will probably drop sometime in the beginning of March just the way the videos I've got going on pose a question on Instagram thinking mowers and blowers you kind of affirm the fact that probably just needed to add a little bit of water still left in the cylinder to get to get out and put everything back together and it seems like it's running good so the next thing I'm gonna have to tackle in part two which I feel like it's gonna be very similar if you've watched my other craftsman video about this mower you saw that I had to take the deck and stuff off to fix the blade engage and all of that good stuff that will be coming on that mower as well as well as the brakes so these probably similar in nature I got to put a couple of tire tubes in it as well but yeah so I'll leave you all without catch-all on part two we're going to do the brakes we're going to do the deck and then we'll clean it up a little bit better too especially in the engine area and I will do off-camera and oil change and the valve cover and get us more looking pretty good here before long so again if you want to follow my current projects and happenings with the mowers at LS mowers o9 on the Instagram and Facebook and I'll catch you all on part two of this craftsman LT 2000

Channel: Ellis Mowers

Views: 43,171

Rating: 4.4428968 out of 5

Keywords: Lawn Mower, Mower Repair, Ellis Mowers, Riding mower, Craftsman, Briggs and Stratton, Backfiring

Id: c7kyyNbf43o

Length: 43min 43sec (2623 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 08 2020