kohler coil problem

[38racing]

I have an older CV15 on a craftsman lt4000 I use for snowplowing. One time this winter it failed to start. I traced it to no spark. I was diagnosing and I was about to pull shroud to remove kill wire when I recovered spark on a new plug. Then I still had spark on original plug. So I had a plow session. Net time it started fine but at end of driveway a bit of backfire and it stopped. No restart. I finished drive with a blower and was set to tow it back and I tried it and it started. I found wire from kill and spliced a connector outside the shroud for future test. May have plowed again (bad memory) Went to move it a few days ago and no start, no spark. Disconnect kill connector , no spark. Even decided to pull shroud and remove kill at coil. No spark. Back to new plug , no spark. R&Rd coil to clean mounting surfaces, no change.So I decided just to ground the inline tester and I get great spark on it. Put it on plug, no spark. I can repeat this. the odd time I got spark on plug but engine would not fire. At end it was consistent, spark to ground but not to plug. I've concluded coil can no longer produce enough voltage to jump plug gap. AM coil on the way. will update when I get it installed

[KE4AVB]

Could even be a bad HV lead. I have seen them do this with other coils. A break in the wire will cause this as the gap is too great with the plug install but yet just enough to fire otherwise on a spark tester; unless, it set at max recommend gap such as the adjustable Briggs tester.

I would try replacing the HV lead as most are replaceable. I replaced several leads last year on Kawasaki, Briggs, and various 2 cycles. This why I have crimp on terminals in both straight and right angle plus 7mm plug wire in stock. I have already made up one HV lead this year. I learned how to do this as I got throwing good coils just because of the mice damage.

[38racing]

do you just cutoff close to coil and splice to piece to the old?

[KE4AVB]

No I break the epoxy and unscrew the lead. Now sometimes it is hard to get the epoxy out. Some are easier than others. Some have screw threads and other just a straight pin. Here is Kohler 3258409 that I just removed the lead from. Now I can put on a longer lead. I use 2 ton clear epoxy to reinstall the new lead after crimp on the new terminal. Just mark the lead for the depth of the hole so you know when you got it fully inserted. Now with one with the screw you screw in the lead instead simply pushing it in. No need to expose the center conductor as the pin or screw will make the contact.

So much better than buying new coils just because of a broken lead and mice damaged the lead. Especially when the above coils are 40 usd each and it less 5 usd to repair the two of them that I have here to repair or replace. Which would you do?

[KE4AVB]

38, Did that clarify what and how I am replacing the HV leads?

[38racing]

38, Did that clarify what and how I am replacing the HV leads?

yep. I will see if I can separate it. I rewired a stator and the epoxy was hard to remove then. I replaced a mouse eaten coil for a friend last year but I think the coil went for scrap.

[38racing]

I was testing ht lead to laminate and cheap meter would flash 1900 then infinite so I tried to remove lead. I ended up with this.
http://web.ncf.ca/da229/smallengine/kohler-coil.jpg
a piece of braided wire. meter tested the same on the wire but I then decided to use an auto ranging meter. It holds reading of 8950 which is within service manual spec of 7900-18000 . question is whether I can attach new lead to this braided wire piece.

[KE4AVB]

Sorry I never have been able open these files. Can you translated it to gif or bmp image. Some of us are South of the border and can't access this location.

[38racing]

Sorry I never have been able open these files. Can you translated it to gif or bmp image. Some of us are South of the border and can't access this location.

actually not opening on my lap either but did on my phone. Likely because I dropped the file type of jpg. Try this.
http://web.ncf.ca/da229/smallengine/kohler-coil.jpg

[38racing]

testing direct image post