lefty wrote:So everything works now. I ran it for 20 minutes and it started first pull. Pulled it a bunch more times over the course of 5 minutes and it started first pull. The work I did was replace the coil and adjust the kill clearance.
But I'm still intrigued by BG's fly wheel concern. Should I still pull that nut off and take a look? I would imagine, and I'm probably wrong, that if the key was sheered the valve timing would be off. So my no start issue would be a random occurrence as the flywheels location in relation to the shaft would vary. But my no start issue was clearly isolated to a hot start situation. I don't mean to 2nd guess someone with so much more experience than me....just spit balling.
Nah if you got it working now then its fixed -
Flywheel key can be just slightly sheared (very tiny bit - can happen just hitting a clump of grass) and throws off ignition timing (too advanced) resulting in incomplete combustion - symptom is a sooty spark plug - *sometimes* they don't shear enough to create a kickback (firing too soon) which is the classic symptom - but they can otherwise seem to run fine or seem to, but the timing will be off and performance suffers.
Flywheel key does NOT affect valve timing - just ignition timing - We have had many of those with identical symptoms to what you had described - they'd run a bit and then die - seemed to run fine but low on power, etc - and many many MZR cables replaced because they were worn or damaged so that they didn't pull the shut down lever far enough away from the kill switch.
How poor are they who have not patience. What wound did ever heal, but by degrees? - Iago (Othello Act II, Scene 3)