# Need help repairing a Craftsman/Briggs & Stratton 650 series



## Bosco55David (Mar 6, 2011)

Hello everyone,

First off, please excuse my lack of knowledge here. I know my way around cars somewhat, but this is my first foray into dealing with small engine repair so I'm not quite up to speed yet

Long story short, I have a the aforementioned lawn mower (purchased in 2007) and it has run fine until just recently when I let a friend borrow it to mow his lawn. According to him, it was running fine until he was mowing in between some shrubs when the mower suddenly lost power. It still ran, but pretty much just sputtering along. He brought it back to me and it would start but when it ran it was still running poorly. I tinkered with it a bit (changed the air filter and fuel, sprayed some carb cleaner in it) but nothing helped and eventually it stopped running completely. Now there is a little "P" shaped lever on the front right hand side of the engine. I forget the proper name for this piece but it has a rod attached to one end and a spring attached to the other, and if I move that piece and start the mower, it will fire up and run at a fast speed for a second before dying. 

My gut instinct is that when he was mowing around his shrubs he ran into them and a branch disconnected/damaged something related to the throttle linkage, but I wouldn't know where to start on fixing this. My local library had a couple Briggs & Stratton repair manuals but neither one seemed to have a solution to my problem, at least not described with my symptoms anyways. I also have a spark tester and verified that I do have spark. 

Any help would be greatly appreciated and thank you in advance!


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## geogrubb (Jul 28, 2006)

Sounds like the linkage got bent, refer to the pic below as an example, if the loop that the spring is attached to is moved forward(to the right in the picture) it will increasee the speed, don't go too far, don't want to blow it up. Have a good one. Geo


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## paulr44 (Oct 14, 2008)

Both you and Geo. are correct in your governor opinion of a branch jamming in there to create the problem. Governors are actually simple devices. If you work on cars, maybe you've worked on a Ryder or such rental type truck with a governor. A simple, centrifugal device with a basis of spring pressure balanced against the centrifugal force of flyweights. The flyweights are retracted when the engine is off. As it speeds up, the weights move the linkage back balancing against the spring pre-load. Simple as that. Manual control as you indicate allows it to run, so follow Geo.'s pic and use your gearhead abilities.
http://www.hobbytalk.com/bbs1/showthread.php?t=315739


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## Bosco55David (Mar 6, 2011)

Thanks for the posts! I've been tied up with personal stuff today, but tomorrow I'll tackle this and see if I can get it running.


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## Bosco55David (Mar 6, 2011)

Looks like I owe you guys a thank you! I followed the process as laid out in the link and now the problem is solved.


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