HELP! 60's/70's Montgomery Ward/Briggs issue

[Shane¹]

I have a couple different Briggs coils laying around you could give a try. The electronic units as @Stump Shot mentioned are so much easier just gap it and away you go

 

[Al Smith]

Most of the time any problems with a points type ignition can be traced to the low voltage side of the circuit being the points and condensor .

 

[legdelimber]

ZeroPoint. How big is the points gap? Everything I can find says 20 thousandths.
Too large of a gap makes the spark timing too early (advanced) and that can cause kicking back.

I knew I'd forget something important.
Haven't had to mess with points ignition since late 1980's, so things are going a bit faded on me.

 

[Al Smith]

With the amount of after market stuff made for Briggs engines it's pretty easy to keep them running .Carbs for examle are cheap .solid state coils likewise .It's usully one or the other that will fail .With the carbs they can get so fouled it's almost impossible to get them right ..12-15 bucks and go blow snow .Which I might we haven't had enough the last few years to even bother with it .

 

[Fishnuts2]

Two to Three Thousandths can make a difference with the points. I'd try .015 to .016.

 

[Spike60]

Not sure how they worked because I seldom went deep into the 4 cycle stuff but a lot of Briggs engines had something called an "automatic compression release" to aid in pull starting. ACR for short. If it fails you're pulling against the full compression of the engine. Kick backs a plenty. Probably a lot of info out there to help you with that.

 

[Al Smith]

It was a mechanism that held the intake valve open in starting and advance the cam at running speed .You can change the valve timing by filing the valve stem so it closes faster .That makes them hard to turn over but changes the torque curve to a lower RPM . I did that but just like the "eductated " Stihl techs some Briggs tech wanted to argue with me it couldn't be done .I found that interesting because I'd already done it .As it turned out on a front tine tiller I was getting the same torque at half throttle as I did at wide open .A front tine tiller running wide open tries to tear your arms off unless you are built like a gorrilla .