Originally Posted By: yeehaw1960
Pull the plug, spray a little carb cleaner into the plug hole, then reinstall the plug and wire. Give it a tug to see if it kicks. If not, put your thumb over the plug hole and you probably won't have any compression. It's a racket. The head gasket blows, then they sell you a whole $45 kit cause you can't just buy the head gasket. If the head bolts are loose, please, please don't torque them down too hard...they will break right off.
What's a good torque setting for a Honda/Chonda head bolt? I have a good torque wrench but no service manual.
BTW, I second whoever said to use some Chevron Techron in the fuel. I've had a Honda engine that sat over the winter months this year that would not start easily and when it did start it surged quite a bit. It's a 10 year old engine/mower and this is the first year that I've had this problem (usually starts on the 2nd or 3rd pull after sitting for the few winter months we have in my part of the county). This year was a problem though. After I got it started and it was running it was surging and would not come up to full rpms. I opened the gas cap while running and poured in a couple of table spoons of Techron. Absolutely amazing. Within 20 seconds the engine stopped surging and ran beautifully. Never had a bottle of anything fix an engine so well. I suspect that the last tank of gasoline has a good dose of ethanol in it and that caused gumming problems (even though I thought I ran the carb dry before putting it away). If the engine won't crank at all you may not have such good luck because you might not actually be able to get the Techron where it is needed. I'd pour some in the tank and crank on it for a while then walk away for a day and try again.
Like I said earlier in this post, looking for torque setting for Honda/Chonda head bolts if anyone has good info.
Thanks,
Scott
