Patient is a 2000 Cub Cadet SRC-621 self propelled walk behind mower.

Couldn't get it started on Sunday, sounded like it had compression, just wouldn't start.

Did some troubleshooting, found the spark plug to be pretty carboned up and fuel fouled.

So that tells me the engine is getting fuel.

I clean the spark plug up and dry it out and put back in the mower, still no go.

I get a new plug, still nothing.

My pea brain decides it must be a bad coil.

I pull the coil and took it in to a mom & pop mower fix it shop that I've trusted for years

to have it tested. The coil tests bad, and as luck would have it, they have the coil in stock.

So I get my new coil and a few other odds and ends that I've been meaning to replace but

never seemed to have gotten around to it and head for home.

I get the new coil installed thinking I got 'er fixed and... nothing.

I do get whiffs of smoke out the muffler that I wasn't getting before.

I thought that maybe the kill switch was shorting out the coil, so I disconnected it

from the coil to test. Still no go.

I pull the plug and it's not fuel fouled anymore so I'm assuming that I have spark.

Interesting thing is, as I try to start it more and more with troubleshooting, the whiffs of

smoke get less and less. By the time I stopped messing with it, there was hardly any

smoke at all.

Using my pea brain again, I figure all the times I tried to start it with a bad coil washed

the cylinder down with fuel and there was just too much fuel to run.

So I left the plug out hoping the fuel would evaporate and was going to try it again tonight.

I do have a compression tester and was going to check that as well tonight.

My mower has the Kawasaki engine which I guess they only used for a couple of years.

I have engine numbers if that would help.

Anyone have any more ideas of things that I can look at?

Scott