Briggs & Stratton Vanguard 18HP Strange problem

[howdah]

Hi There knowledgeable people of the forum

I have an 18HP Briggs on a Max IV, runs fine on the flat, down hill no problem, but when i go uphill it lacks power and "pops" occasionally from the exhaust, only happens when i need to give it some power when climbing, for example this morning it was loaded with i guess around 650lbs and it felt real sluggish and would "pop" every 10 seconds or so ?

Any ideas, i have changed gas, changed plugs (noticed one was a bit sooty)

As always the help of this forum is appreciated.

[garrett1308]

Is the gasket for the carb lid in good shape?

[howdah]

Is the gasket for the carb lid in good shape?

yes was replaced when it had a new carb a few months ago

[racerone3]

guessing it was the back spark plug that was sooty? no spark back there due to a bad diode in the kill wire, timing off due to a sheared flywheel key, valve lash needing adjustment would be the first places I would look.

[garrett1308]

Did you have the issue with the old carb? Did it show up with the new carb or a while after getting it on?

[howdah]

It ran great with the new carb, issue only showed after around 50 hours of running later, another symptom is it appears not to "settle" very well when driving and the governor keeps going in and out like a fiddlers elbow !

[howdah]

Solved

After lots of fiddling i found out that the choke cable had shifted and the choke flap on the top of the carb was not completely open, adjusted cable and now is all ok