It's a Honda!!

This machine took a bit of digging. This is a Honda walk-behind mower a customer brought in for routine service and assessment. Compression was great but could not get a good ignition spark. I tracked the problem down to a little momentary contact "kill" switch. Most engines of this type just use a small bit of spring steel to short out the high voltage to the spark plug stopping the engine. With these, you usually just clean the contacts.

Leave it to Honda to make it complicated. The little black plastic switch shown in the pictures is the culprit. I have a replacement on order but, again, as is Honda's way, you can only buy the OEM switch and it runs around $25.00. I checked all my usual sources as well as new ones, but same answer from all of them.

Now that I know what is wrong, I can do the work on the rest of the mower, then set it aside, waiting for the part.