poulan 2150 chainsaw wont start consistantly

[jwales]

Friends poulan chainsaw. He said it ran fine during the day, then quit. When trying to start it, it would not. He let it set a while and tried again. It started but would not keep running. I got it, drained the fuel. Fuel filter and lines are in good condition. Cleaned carb in USC. Treid to start and nothing, even with a shot of starting fluid. Put the spark tester on it and good spark. removed spark plug and put cap on and looked for spark. None. bad plug, right? Tried a new plug. No spark. Put tester back on and spark present. tried plug again, this time it was laying on the cylinder head and there was spark. remove it off the head and no spark. What is going on? Is the coil going bad?

I am not experienced with electric issues and not very comfortable as well.

[38racing]

Sounds a bit like my Tecumseh problem. Coil not good enough for compression spark.

[bgsengine]

t. tried plug again, this time it was laying on the cylinder head and there was spark. remove it off the head and no spark. What is going on? Is the coil going bad?
.

Well yeah, spark plug must be grounded to bare metal which is why you saw spark when it was laying on the cylinder fins... Might just have a bad plug, might have a problem in the wire where the terminal hooks through it (wire breaks there relatively common).. Also just because fuel lines "look good" doesn't mean they don't leak, filter can look clean as a whistle and still be plugged up.. and you wanna make sure intake gasket installed correctly for the pulse hole to operate fuel pump..

[jwales]

Not sure what I tried that fixed the problem but it works fine now. Removed carb and check fuel line connections (maybe the gasket lined up properly). Cleaned around the coil (bar oil and saw dust thick) and disconnected kill wire and cleaned up and re-connected. put everything back together and it runs fine. Thanks.