Briggs motor oil in sparkplug area

agentphish

So it appears at one point at the end of last year when I did my first gasket replacement on a 4 year old Briggs 550 motor that powers a craftsman mower I somehow got oil into the area where the sparkplug is. The plug end is covered so I am headed to buy a new plug. Any ideas on other things I can do to clean out that area or help the mower start?

Thanks

TarheelTerp

What gasket did you replace?

Did you turn the mower on it's side to clean the underneath or remove the blade?

The plug is probably fine. Dirty but fine.

Without the plug installed pull the cord 5 or 6 times to push the oil out and/or distribute it back inside the cylinder. reinstall the plug and then do exactly what Briggs said to do for starting in the spring.

hth

agentphish

Carb gasket

I dud turn it on its side.

I will need to look at the Briggs instructions I guess

agentphish

Yes actually I followed the oil change instructions on the Briggs website and turned it on its side that's when oil got into that spot. I don't understand why the hell they tell you to do it if oil will get in there.

Did I do something wrong?

I can not get this thing started, I've now tried a new plug, starting fluid made by stabil that you add to your gas. A new primer buib.

I got it to go once for about 5 seconds then it died. I really need help.

agentphish

Briggs is telling me that I should be replacing the carb at this point, it makes no sense to me at all why I should need to do this on a mower that has a build date of less than 3 years ago.

The Briggs person I talked to was trying to blame ethanol for damaging the carbs on these mowers. She said "the ethanol is tearing up the carbs and we're trying to find a solution"

I don't know

DexterII

Make sure that your air filter is clean; a plugged one can cause the engine to pull oil from the crankcase, which will quickly foul the plug.

agentphish

Ok so I took the carb off again. Cleaned it again. Made sure there was good flow through all the holes and screens.

Put it back on and it fired up. So issue is in the carb. Just mowed for 20 mins and it shut off. Thought I ran it outta gas but I didnt

There's some debris that has to be in the system just I don't know where since I JUST cleaned everything!

So freaking frustrating!

SingleGuy

I turn my mower on it's side all the time to change the oil and blades. I've never had a problem. Should I not be doing that?