Solo won’t start….

All – I have a one year old solo pro mag, started it every 4 weeks ran perfect all last year and the day before I went up to Red Lake….got on the lake and the motor would not even turn over…stood it up thought maybe flooding, tried all throughout the day…didn’t turn over once or even sound like it wanted to….put in the hotel room all day to warm up and still nothing….tried to take the spark plug up there but didn’t have the tools, before I dig into this thing anyone have any suggestions? I am thinking it’s something with the kill switch, I’m thinking something got disconnected during travel…from what I could tell all the wires from the on/off switched looked good but couldn’t follow them up into the auger…going to check that out as well….if you guys can think of anything else I should look at let me know….Thanks

My apologies in advance for this super basic question but you do have the blue choke lever in the “start” position, correct?

I’d check continuity of the on/off switch 1st then go from there

James, yes everything is on start, drilled hundred of holes with this auger and had it running just hours before, I am thinking it has to be the on/off switch wiring as it was a little rough the first hundred yards on Red Lake…hopefully this is a quick and easy fix…

I have my doubts that it is the switch.

I had similar problems last year. Started, ran for about 1 minute, then quit and I spent about 30 mins, but could not get started. Acted like it would want to start, I thought I had it flooded… seemed like it was flooded as I could smell gas. I could get it to put out a little smoke as I pulled the cord, but it simply would not start.

Finally, returned home and had to carefully clean out the carburetor, then after a couple of pulls the motor took off and ran well. I was using some 2 cycle gas mix left over from weed whipping from last summer and think that it must have had some particulates in it. I could not actually tell that it was plugged.. just blew out passages and carefully went through through it.

This year, one of my plastic gas line hoses cracked right at the grommet where they enter the fuel tank. Was spewing fuel while it ran. So had to remove the grommet and replace the plastic fuel lines.

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James, yes everything is on start, drilled hundred of holes with this auger and had it running just hours before, I am thinking it has to be the on/off switch wiring as it was a little rough the first hundred yards on Red Lake…hopefully this is a quick and easy fix…

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10-4. Reason I ask is I ran into a guy when we were up in Ely that was feverishly pulling away on his Solo. I walked up… said “can’t I try something?” and slid the choke level to the start position.

His next pull resulted in a started auger motor and a couple good belly laughs. If only your issue was going to be as simple to fix, eh?

I would think it would be very easy to jump across that on/off switch to see if that’s where the issue lies.

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I have my doubts that it is the switch.

I had similar problems last year. Started, ran for about 1 minute, then quit and I spent about 30 mins, but could not get started. Acted like it would want to start, I thought I had it flooded… seemed like it was flooded as I could smell gas. I could get it to put out a little smoke as I pulled the cord, but it simply would not start.

Finally, returned home and had to carefully clean out the carburetor, then after a couple of pulls the motor took off and ran well. I was using some 2 cycle gas mix left over from weed whipping from last summer and think that it must have had some particulates in it. I could not actually tell that it was plugged.. just blew out passages and carefully went through through it.

This year, one of my plastic gas line hoses cracked right at the grommet where they enter the fuel tank. Was spewing fuel while it ran. So had to remove the grommet and replace the plastic fuel lines.

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If you read the OP post, he says it doesn’t fire at all, so yes the switch would be the first place I look.

last year mine would run for a little bit then shut off so we toke it in to a small engine place and the gas line had a hairline crack

Yes, the motor wouldn’t fire at all so I wouldn’t think it has anything to do with fuel/fuel line as it was running perfectly before I headed up there, brand new gas in it…

Spark or fuel.

You can always pull the spark plug boot and stick your pinky in it and pull it over. You will either get shocked or not.
Does not mean your plug is good but it means you have power to the plug.

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If you read the OP post, he says it doesn’t fire at all, so yes the switch would be the first place I look.

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Actually the OP post said “….got on the lake and the motor would not even turn over… ”

One has to pull the rope to get the engine to turn over.

If one does not have power to the spark plug, what does a guy do to fix that?

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If one does not have power to the spark plug, what does a guy do to fix that?

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No Spark is either a bad plug, bad switch, Bad CDI magneto, not much else that it could be with no spark.

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If one does not have power to the spark plug, what does a guy do to fix that?

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“IF”, that is the case I would start with a switch bypass.
That could be done as easy as cutting the wires for the switch and twisting them together “IF” I guy was in a bind. OR if there are pig tail connections just unhook those and tie together there. I am unfamiliar with Solo wiring.

Just tore the motor apart, no juice to the plug, put
Plug in buddies same auger and it fires right up no issues, looks like I will have to run to big lake possibly? We were trying to take the red cover off the motor, but that looked like a little
More than I was capable of at this point in time….unless any of you guys on here are up for a challenge, have a trip planned
For this weekend so I need it fixed this week….PM me if you have a clue what your doing….

Ok, folks seem to think the switch is a good idea to checkout, but I personally find that folks think things are electrical frequently when engines won’t fire and usually it’s fuel.

To check the switch put an ohm meter on the switch connections and see that it is open in the off position and has connection (closed) in the on position. A multimeter can be purchased for ~$20 at a hardware store. If you have some McGuiver in you, then a flashlight and a couple of wires will indicate whether connection is being made through the switch or not.

Or another way is to either pull the plug and ground it to the head to look for spark or to simply put your finger in the plug’s boot and pull the cord slowly to feel the spark. (I personally don’t care for using the latter method.)

I doubt it is the switch though… usually is gas on small engines, regardless of how good one is about keeping stuff out of their fuel.

Last spring, I had to replace a needle in a Briggs engine as the rubber point had pushed out of the needle by about 1/16″ over winter. I attribute that to usage of gas with alcohol in it ruining the rubber point.

i had a similar problem this year, try starting it with it out of choke and hold the throtle down see if that makes a differnce..again make sure your making short pulls with it.

Hey guys, after doing what I could at home and not being abloe to figure it out, I brought my auger up to Big Lake to have some pro’s take a look at it, they diagnosed it within 10 min, had it repaired and back to me the following day. It was a cracked / shattered ignition coil. I guess I learned the hard, and spendy way that I need to get an auger mount for my wheeler and not let it bounch in the bottom of my auger…..She is up and running like a champ now. Shout out to the guys @ H2O Outfitters in big lake, they run a top notch outfit.

Glad to hear you are up and running again.

Last year my Solo quit on me. I disected the carburator on my work bench and sprayed out all the openings with carb cleaner. Runs like brand new. Damn them ports are tiny in the Solo carb.