Tag: lawn mower pull cord won’t come out

Lawn Mower Repair Tips

The Pull Cord On My Self-Propelled Lawn Mower is Stuck

This condition makes it feel like you are going to break your right arm when the pull cord gets stuck. You yank on it and it is locked up tight.

Let’s check a few easy things first.

Check the oil. If you have no oil on the dipstick, that is a bad sign and the engine could be seized up. “Sometimes” you can break the engine free, add more oil and dodge a bullet, but that is rare. Normally the engine is destroyed if run on no oil.

Pull the spark plug wire off the spark plug and tilt the mower backwards so you can inspect under the mower. Is there anything that is blocking the blade from turning? Can you move the blade at all?

Sometimes a rock or stick will get caught in the blade and stop the engine from turning.

The pull starter would also be broken and causing it to be locked up.

If you cannot determine what the problem is, visit our Locations page for a small engine repair shop near you.

Lawn Mower Repair Tips

My Lawn Mower Jerks the Pull Cord Out of My Hand

This is a dangerous condition and can easily cut your hand or worse, break a bone in it. Do not continue to try and pull start the lawn mower until you have it checked out by a lawn mower repair professional.

Now you are probably wondering why this happens in the first place right? Well, most of the time it happens because you have hit something with the blade or someone has been working on the engine internals and did not set the timing up right on the cam.

When you hit something or have a blade strike as it is called in the industry, it will cause the shear key in the flywheel to move or “shear” as it is designed to do. When this flywheel key shears, it causes the timing of the ignition firing to be off a number of degrees. When the spark plug fires at the wrong time, it will cause the piston to move violently in the downward motion and the pull cord is still trying to move the piston in the upward position.

The result is the force you feel when the pull cord is whipped out of your hand and the handle slams into the engine cover.

So it is wise to get your lawn mower checked out by a professional that can diagnose the problem and repair it so you have a safe to operate mower once again.

Visit our Locations page for a lawn mower shop near you.