Unleashing Power in Your Zero Turn Mower! Diagnosing and Fixing Loss of Power & Bogging Issues

so we've got a Toro time cutter z5035 v twin this morning customer brought it in just for a tune-up we pulled it in to go ahead and tuned it up and noticed uh some major loss of power at least it sounds that way so we're gonna check this out and show you what causes that on a zero turn mower what to look for how to diagnose that and how to get it taken care of so you don't have that issue now on this unit it's got the Kawasaki fr691v engine on it 24 horse V-Twin good engines on these things we're we're happy with the design happy with the power out of these things usually don't have too many issues whatsoever so what you always want to do first with something like this if you're losing power at all is you want to check the fuel supply check the carburetor all that good stuff fueling this smells great it doesn't present as a fuel related issue now a lot of things if you're getting snapping and popping and just erratic running out of something it's most likely a carburetor issue you know a lot of times that's the case people think it's a valve issue or something like that normally isn't what's going on but always start there uh start at the most common issue and work your way backwards now on something like this if it's only running you know five or ten minutes and then you're having an issue with the engine dying or something like that you definitely want to pay attention to the pickup tube where the fuel comes in what's up well that's why they say you're not supposed to have those ramps up there when you uh um when you're working on it they fall quite often but the pickup tube that goes down into the tank a lot of times it'll get clogged right at the elbow here just with debris or whatever and it'll shut off fuel supply so if you're running between five and 30 minutes and then your mower's shutting off check that first check your pickup tube check your lines a lot of times if they're cracked or dry rotted they will suck down on themselves so they'll collapse over the course of the suction cause restricted flow and eventually cause you to die so again first go to there obviously make sure your air cleaner is not restricted that's a big loss of power issue also this thing's got new air filter and everything on it everything's been checked out new fuel filter but from there what you're going to want to do is you're going to want to check your spark on each side so uh what we did is we went ahead and checked this thing out each individual side here you can test it independently so if you I'll fire this thing up and just show you how it sounds normally so it's just kind of sounding restricted there doesn't sound like it has full power whatsoever uh to a trained deer anyway so if it's not sounding like it's getting full power on a V-Twin you could be operating on simply one cylinder so if you take each spark plug off and you verify that each cylinder is working independently you know at that point that there is spark on each side and that both sides have compression and and so forth now that doesn't mean the compression on both sides is going to match it doesn't mean that each side is actually running real strong but that's a little bit bigger of an issue so there we have it on that side pretty much exactly the same we know we're getting spark now if you don't want to test it independently you don't have to you can always use a spark tester just to confirm you're getting spark we use the spark Checker but it just kind of Clips on the side tells us you know low okay or high spark so it's showing okay there so that's good I'm gonna unplug the other side spark plug and a lot of times this will present as low power going up a hill low power you know going through Tall Grass low power with a PTO on there's a lot of different ways this this problem presents that's always good nothing like a backfire at 4 45 in the morning and wake the neighbors up uh this cylinder is not operating properly now why is that I'm not really sure at this point we can test the spark if you don't have a spark tester again you can hold the you can remove the spark plug and hold it against the block and look for the spark between your probe and the outside edge that'll tell you exactly whether you have spark or not and you should visibly be able to see it there shouldn't be anything in between the probe and the and the outside and the ground but that'll visually be able to tell you we know we have spark on this side because we just got a good uh a good pop out of it but let's make sure it's good go ahead and just fire it up again another good good backfire there showed okay spark here so we're happy with that definitely good to go now at this point normally we'd go ahead and throw away a compression test or something on it like that but it doesn't sound like it's a compression issue sounds like it's a valve issue so we're going to go ahead and pull this valve cover off and see if that's what we have going on it's just a simple valve issue now it could be a bent push rod could be a valve not stealing right could be a few different things but a lot of times what you'll have is one side's not getting sparked so that cylinder isn't working whatsoever uh if you're not getting spark on one spark plug or the other obviously you can switch the plugs try the other side see if it Sparks very rarely a bad spark plug but it is possible now if you're not getting spark on one side or the other what you can do is you can take the housing off and you can disconnect the wire from the coil and check your spark at that point now you want to make sure everything on the other side is disconnected because you don't want it to accidentally start or anything like that but yeah not too difficult to check that out you go ahead and use a 10 millimeter here and remove our valve cover and figure out what's going on and again A lot of times it's just bent push rod uh valve not seating right also the spacing could have came off loosened up something like that I haven't had this open yet so I'm doing this real time I'm not exactly sure what's going on but I can't tell you we're going to figure it out all right got that gasket in real bad shape real quick it's okay A lot of times they break they're just brittle when they come off so no big deal there see what we got everything looks looks in pretty good shape pretty tight not really seeing any issues with the valves or anything else at this point everything is looking kind of really like it should again not seeing I haven't seen really anything anything out of the ordinary here at this point that doesn't mean that there's not we heard that backfire so we know something's going on over on this side let's see so the valves all look like they're good I don't really see an issue there what we're going to go ahead and do is we're going to take this cover off real quick go ahead and take the top cover so I can turn the engine easily and we'll come back and figure out exactly what we have going on so I've got the top off here so we can spin this nice and easy and check out the valves and their exact movement here on first inspection everything looks to be moving good we're going to check the valve spacing now these are hydraulic lifters you just want a little bit of play there that's great um hydraulic lifters basically means it uses the oil pressure of the engine in order to set the valve spacing so you've got down in there essentially a basically a little hydraulic cylinder that pumps up and it's what sets the valve spacing of the unit on these so kind of similar to a car I'm not real well versed in them or anything like that but if there are no adjustments on anything here as far as the valves go you know that it's hydraulic lifters because there's no uh adjustment now you do want to pay close attention that the bolt on either one of these rocker holders hasn't came backed out sometimes they'll back out and then it won't be sealed down against the aluminum there so this piece will actually be able to rock one way or the other so you want to make sure that's not the case on either one and that neither of the push rods is bent or real loose or anything like that once they get bent a lot of times it won't you won't see the push rod here you won't see it uh really have any issue but it'll be real real sloppy and you won't notice that at all but it'll come off that'll cause your loss of power also see that quite a bit a lot of times it's just bent push rods or the bolts backed out you also want to pay attention to how far the valve comes back out so if you're looking the valve should come out in equal amount of space now these are kind of hard to see just because they're at different angles and stuff but just make sure they come out all the way you know if if one's getting stuck to where there's a lot of space in between your rocker here and your actual valve at the top you know you have an issue you know your valve is not coming back out or closing all the way because it's when they come out to this side is when they actually close on the back side so everything is looking good at this point I don't see anything wrong with the valves or the push rods or anything like that again A lot of times I throw away compression test on it but it looks like everything's functioning properly and it doesn't sound to me like it's a compression issue um let's see here so if I'm looking up top the next thing is looking at the coil now we got a good spark let's see here so it almost looks like so I wonder if we're having an issue here it looks like we're actually getting cross feed that's arcing back to the coil from where where that wire has been rubbing and just ground it out there now that would give you inconsistent spark bad spark it could cause those backfires because you've got too much fuel or it's only firing every other time and it's coming around or something like that so let's go ahead and let's go ahead and throw this plug back in there real quick and throw that valve cover back on and see what it does we're going to keep this wire unplugged for our coil and this is basically just isolating the coil from the rest of the electronic system at this point we know the valves and everything are good all of our spacing is good we tested good spark but sometimes you can't trust that even if you even if you visibly see it against the block that doesn't mean that it's sparking every time that it comes around or anything like that it's hard to tell exactly when those Sparks are happening so it almost looks to me like that like that's going to be our issue it's just a bad kill wire going back to the coil rubbing out so we'll find out here very shortly again while you're in here you can test all that you can run these independently by unplugging the kill wires that'll tell you if one's working or one isn't working and it's the same thing you can run it independently with them unplugged and that bypasses your whole electronic system just like with unplugging the plug you bypass everything of the unit so just gonna go ahead and snug these up I do have another rocker cover gasket I'll throw on there obviously if that's the problem foreign about it leaking oil right at this very second just trying to figure out what the issue is so I've got the plug wire unplugged over here I've got the top unplugged now you want to be mindful depending on what unit you're doing this on if it doesn't have a after fire solenoid or it's not working when you turn the key off it may not turn off if your uh kill wire is disconnected so just be sure everything's free and that you're being safe when you're doing this you don't want something to start and not be able to turn it off so so I fire it up there it starts runs perfect no issue whatsoever and obviously it still sounds kind of uh kind of labored because it is because I'm only running I'm not running on this cylinder at this point I'm only running on this cylinder which is the one that wasn't working so I'm sure whenever we get it completely started or whatever that we're going to get some major smoke out of it because this side hasn't been burning for a little while it's been grounding out at this kill wire so that's what our issue has been in this point you know again there's a lot of these different issues depending on the situation and depending on uh the mower and the motor uh going on but a lot of these kill wires will hit somewhere or be attached you know just check this wire all the way along if it's rubbing up against metal anywhere that can cause just a tiniest little Nick in that wire and that's going to lead it to spark back to ground and you're gonna your cylinder is going to be dropping out so very easy I've got another one over there a Simplicity that sounds to me like it's having the same type of issue right now um we're gonna check it out another company checked it out and quoted a bad head gasket and thirty five hundred dollars worth of repair on this Simplicity over here the thing's not worth that but uh we're gonna check it out a little later but I I think that's the issue that's going on there so it's a common issue across the board no matter what kind of mower you're looking at whether it's a zero turn or a regular ride or anything V-Twin if you're getting loss of power or intermittent running or anything like that uh when you hear it you can you can almost hear it drop out a lot of times but it does take a trained deer to hear that but check that uh kill wire and then if it's getting hot and then shutting down or getting hot and then having that issue it can be one of the coils also so depending on what your situation is sometimes you can leave it running you know in a in an environment where you're mowing uh you know real thin stuff or something like that leaving everything uh completely uncovered and mowing with it and then testing as you go from there you know you can pull a plug wire as it's hot figure out what's going on but coils do fail a lot um they go bad especially when things heat up you know they they tend not to work or drop out further at that point there's a couple different designs that uh you may come across two of the more common ones on some different Briggs engines I believe these are both Briggs heads anyway they look pretty familiar as far as that goes not uh that should be a Briggs V-Twin like a Vanguard type this may be a cylinder single cylinder Briggs either way you're going to come across some different uh Styles as far as how to adjust the valves on these now if those valves aren't if they don't have just a little bit of play to them to where there's a little bit of looseness in between your valve and your actual rocker here you're going to want to adjust the valve spacing now the valve comes up you know through the engine and it's going to push from the bottom here right down in and that one doesn't want to work right for some reason maybe why it's here so it's going to be pushing from there and that's what's going to set the spacing as far as your valve goes now the torque here along with the I think it's a 13 millimeter nut that's what's going to set the valve spacing depending on how far that's in or out it it sets the spacing in between your rocker and your actual valve here so you will want to go ahead and loosen that and set the spacing in between the rocker and the valve should they be too tight now that a lot of times with the symptom of what was going on there that that's going to be something to where it's either too tight otherwise the studs backed out uh there's something in between the where the valve seats at the bottom and the back side we see that a lot so as your valve opens on the back side something a piece of a spark plug or something gets down in the spark plug hole somehow and blocks that off we see a lot of times a piece like a screw from the choke body or something like that come off and getting golf down into the engine it'll be in between the valve and the head there causing an issue like that we do see those a lot now on something like this your spacing is a little different it's actually up here on top so you've got to loosen the torques here and you actually move the nut and that's what controls the difference um as far as the rocker distance goes so obviously your push rods coming up through and it's pushing there but depending on how far this is in or out that's going to change your spacing so you want to measure with your feeler gauge in between there and adjust accordingly on your valve lash that should uh hopefully give you everything you need to know and get you taken care of if you're having an issue with low power on one of these now if everything checks out here uh it's still not running after you've checked this other cylinder or this other coil you know you've got good spark on this coil you've got uh all the Rockers and everything are working good you've got everything there is Good from that point you'll want to run a compression test so you can do that with a compression tester you can also do a leak down test either way is going to tell you you know kind of what the um what the uh complete view of your of your cylinder is on this side because this is the cylinder that is not running independently so the cylinder head could be blown out you know in between now this is a single cylinder brick but could be blown out in between where the cylinder is and where the rocker is causing some issues it could be blown out between where the cylinder head is and to the outside a lot of times you'll see signs of that if you look down through in where your cylinder head is though you'll see leaking oil or you know some sort of marking telling you that that's the case but uh that that's really pretty much everything you need to know about why a cylinder wouldn't be firing you know um compression is a big one you know but you can also look down through the spark plug hole uh as you're turning it over um to see if you have good compression or at least see if the Piston's moving up and down to see if you have good compression if you don't have a compression tester you know you can take the plug wires off and go ahead and just stick your thumb Over the Hole while you're turning it over if you got good compression it's going to blow your thumb off but that's a real just kind of a real basic way of knowing if you have compression you have no idea what that compression actually is you can still have pretty low compression um and that that uh compression will still blow your uh thumb right off that hole so hopefully that gives you everything you need to know thanks for watching like And subscribe

Channel: Individualized Repair Inc

Views: 39,238

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Id: XTAlXFqXHJw

Length: 20min 14sec (1214 seconds)

Published: Wed May 31 2023