The wire hanging out is from the alternator and will run a light or possibly some other electric controls on your machine. You may not have a light or electric controls. Some machines have a wire there that does not go to anything. Regardless; the connector is from the alternator and if you have something electric that does not work check for its wire to not be connected. If the wire is supposed to connect to something and does not it should not affect your startings. That's a different system.
For starting:
If an engine is in good shape it should start on the first one to three pulls.
If in good shape it should only take a few seconds on the electric start to fire up.
If it will no start on the first few hand pulls something is wrong. If nothing major is wrong often the electric start will get you by and start the machine.
Generally hard starting is due to a gas or carburetor problem.
1. Do you have gas?
2. Do you have a gas on/off valve under the gas tank? It should be on. (just noticed that you do not).
3. Are you using fresh gas, last years gas, could there be water or moisture in the gas?
4. Are you priming the engine with the flexible primer button?
5. Do you have the choke fully on?
6. A fast test would be to dump a teaspoon of gas into the engine through the sparkplug hole. Remove the spark plug and pour in the gas. It's ok if a bit spills. If the engine fires up for a short time then you have a gas issue like no gas, or need service on your carburetor i.e. cleaning.
7. You may not be getting spark in the sparkplug. You can remove the sparkplug with the hood attached and hold it near some metal to see if a spark jumps from the plug bottom to a metal engine part. It if does then your problem is probably gas related. If not you need a dealer to cure the problem.
Additions: Do you have an ON/OFF key - flat plastic - that inserts into a cutout made for it on the heater box cover?
The impeller and tractor drive sections are separate from the engine running so no point in testing those. Also, do not push too long on the start button - 5 seconds should be enough and leave some time between pushes to let it cool down. The starter is only rated to turn an engine and the extra load of augers or tractor drive will make the starter work much harder, harder than it is rated to work and could burn out.
Having to resort to electric start rather than a few pulls is an indication that something is wrong. Often electric start will overcome a minor problem and people rely on the electric starting until the problem gets so bad the engine will not start at all. This is generally due to wives not doing the expected maintenance on their husbands machines.
Ke
This message was modified Dec 21, 2008 by trouts2
