# Toro Parts (GTA - Ontario)



## RobbyY (Oct 28, 2021)

My used Toro 621QZE had a hard time getting fired up during this massive snow storm. As it turned out, the magnet on the flywheel needed to be replaced. After looking up, I guess I have to get the entire flywheel kit (Part# 119-1958). Any idea where I can get this kit? I live in the GTA (Toronto, Ontario. Thank you all in advance!


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## asavage (Dec 20, 2021)

Short of 1930s magnetos, I've never heard of a small engine's magnet losing strength. In the old days (I mean, 1940s-50s), you could have magneto horseshoe magnets re-magnetized, but I've only heard about that from previous generations, not in modern times.


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## RobbyY (Oct 28, 2021)

I actually had a tech looked at this issue. He found that the spark was yellow (weak) instead of blue (normal). Hence, he felt that the magnet was not doing its job.


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## JayzAuto1 (Jul 25, 2016)

More likely a bad coil than a magnet.... If the magnet will pull a screwdriver to it from a 1/2" away, magnet is good. Check coil gap, ohm the coil and the wire,,,, replace the spark plug..... It's NOT the coil.


GLuck, Jay


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## asavage (Dec 20, 2021)

I've not worked on more than a dozen small engines in the past 35 years, but the decade before that I serviced hundreds -- probably thousands, now that I think on it. Full-time job for years. 

I never solved an ignition problem by replacing a magnet/flywheel.

I'll stick my neck out and say . . . the _color_ of the spark is a function of the gases composition near the tester, and not a function of the electronics producing the voltage necessary to ionize the gases at the test site. IOW, if the spark clears the gap, it's "good enough". To fire, maybe not to run smoothly or consistenly, but no static tester is going to give you much information about running performance during a cranking-speed test.

My old B&S GO/NO-GO spark tester failed to diagnose a bad ignition system ONCE in 45 years (I was using it on a late 80s Subaru, a task for which it was not designed. I got a spark jump the engine would not fire; replacing a coil fixed the issue, so I guess I can call that a tester fail?).

A magnet can lose its zip by heating it pretty darn hot, by fracturing it mechanically (creating more poles of less amplitude (gauss?)), and probably by other means, but I haven't heard of a bad modern magneto magnet. But again, I don't travel in these circles anymore; maybe it's become a thing?

---

Fun tale I don't think I've ever committed to paper before:

During the winter, small engine service work drops off dramatically; basically, there were no snow throwers in the 70s in this area to speak of (I saw TWO in the shop over the course of maybe six years?) and chainsaws were most of the stuff coming through the door for months. So all the Spring/Summer/Fall trade-ins and basket cases got dragged out to see what we could put together for used sales inventory next year. Kept us yung-ins outta trouble and on the payroll until our youth/stamina could be more fully utilized during the busy Spring months, when people dragged out their OPE and found it wouldn't start -- March/April were 12-hour days then.

Anyway, it wasn't unusual to find a half-dozen mowers of a similar model, all in various stages of disassembly, stacked together in storage and I'd be asked to see if I could put as many of them together for resale as practical. This led to a lot of hilarious corner-cases in service work. I recall a pair of Kawasaki 100 motorcycles with their cases split and guts mixed together, and me trying to get all five speeds shifting on the bench, using microfiche for parts breakdowns.

Anyway, the tale I started to tell above . . . Lawn Boy mowers. We were a dealer and had bunches of old trade-ins, and I put a lot of them back into service, swapping out pistons/rings for new, repacking new needle bearing to the cranks, like that. But there was one that I fought after reassembly for days (on the payroll, mind). It would start fine and idle well (Lawn Boys of that vintage had limited throttle control, they started and ran at 3600, period. ON-OFF only on some models). But once the RPMs came up, it would stop firing, until the RPMs came down near idle, at which point it would resume firing and climb back toward the sky again. If "felt" like a governor issue . . . except the throttle was staying pinned WOT during all this.

Those old Lawn Boys had a sophisticated -- for a lawnmore -- external mechanical governor for throttle, and a nifty _mechanical timing advance_ for their points ignitions. Back in those days, shops didn't have timing lights, because almost all OPE were static timed (with the engine off). Eventually . . . I dragged my own (expensive! for my high-school budget!) Echlin automotive timing light to work, just so I could get a feel for what was going on. The secondary (HV) ignition was shutting off when the RPMs hit like 2500, and would resume when it slowed down a bit.

I had the flywheel off that engine dozens of times (I was young) and couldn't figure out the issue. I had loads of (used) spare parts, and I swapped them ALL . . . except the one that needed swapping!

All the Lawn Boy 2-strokes I'd ever seen used a points gap of .020" . . . but as it happens, there was some oddball model (or maybe just a lot older vintage than the rigs I'd been used to working on) that spec'd .016", and the points cam for that model had a differently-ground profile on its cam. Set the points to .016" . . . bingo. IIRC, the flywheel's keyway was possibly different to match that points cam (?) and the magnets were therefore approaching the coil at a different degree rotation than the later rigs, so the points needed to open later . . . and when I had the points at .020", there wasn't enough energy available at the right time.

Nobody at that shop knew about the old .016" points gap model, and we had some old-timers there. I ran across it on the microfiche, looking for parts variations -- found it!

I'm sure glad I got paid to work that one out; many later troubleshooting issues were on my own dime


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## crazzywolfie (Jun 2, 2014)

if its not running and you have spark of some sort i would start by taking the float bowl off and see if there is any debri or jell in the carb especially with the temp swings we have had recently. most of the time the issue is in the float bowl. cleaned a carb yesterday that had jell in it but the people thought they had a spark issue since they couldn't get it to fire with quick start. they just were not getting quick start into the carb with all the covers.


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## RobbyY (Oct 28, 2021)

Hey thank you for your in-depth comments. I will see that the carb is cleaned and if the coil should be replaced instead.


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## Grunt (Nov 11, 2013)

Trying a known good spark plug will eliminate that as a cause.


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## asavage (Dec 20, 2021)

Ah, but you don't have a known-good spark plug if you don't have an alternate machine to test it on. IOW, new plugs do (or used to) fail right out of the box. Granted, I've only seen this twice, but I _have_ seen it . . . 40 years ago. But "new" does not automatically mean "OK" in my head.

If the spark is jumping the tester gap, the ignition system is likely good enough to at least start briefly, and I'd look for other issues (spark plug & carburetor/fuel quality/fuel filter are good candidates). If it starts but dies, then the ignition system could still be implicated, but since the advent of electronic ignition in OPE, this is much less of an issue than it was in the 70s and earlier. Modern electronic ignition is just so much more reliable than points/condenser systems.

(I once had an aftermarket Boyer electronic ignition retrofit kit on my '71 Triumph Tiger, and it was noticeably more difficult to start than with the points setup. After a couple of seasons having to kick start it three times instead of one of two, I eventually removed the kit and went back to points/condenser: first-kick starts again! Early aftermarket electronic retrofit kits' quality was all over the board.)


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