Gear heads, I need your help

[Dave S]

I have my neighbors wood splitter, which has an older Sachs 277cc snowmobile engine for power. It quit running on me this past weekend and my first thought was that I fouled a plug. I replaced the plug and still no spark.

I'm not much of a gear head myself, but my best guess is maybe it has a bad set of points? It's a fan cooled motor with a model #5943116. I'm not sure what year it is.

Any ideas. I want to get this thing running before I return it.

A little more on the situation. My neighbor passed away from cancer 6 weeks ago and his widow told me to borrow anything that I wanted. She encouraged me to use the splitter, just to get it out of the yard.

Any thoughts?

[beeonkey]

It sounds like points and condencer, your most likely. How did they govenor the thing to work on a splitter. something sounds funny there, as to just what engine you have.

[Dave S]

Thanks for the reply. I did some checking online after my post and found the likely culprit is the coil, or like you said, the points/condenser.

I'm guessing the motor comes from the '69-70 era. They used a lovejoy coupler to mate the jackshaft to the pump and run a belt off the crank to the jackshaft to allow slippage if the motor is overloaded.

It sure does a heck of a job splitting wood and is louder than the dickens.

I talked to the neighbors wife who said that someone else wants the splitter, but not to stick any money into it.

Again, thanks for the reply.