Cub Cadet FAQ's

Cub Cadet Backfiring

Info by Dave Kirk & Richard Christensen

It's a phenomena known as "after-fire" in the trade. Not truly a "back-fire", it's caused by fast running engine coasting down, pumping carbureted air/fuel mixture into the muffler, with hot internal muffler components above the self-ignition temperature of the mixture. By the time engine stops turning, muffler is completely charged with an ideal explosive gas, and a few seconds dwell time is all it takes for hot surface ignition to occur. Idling the engine helps cool down muffler and reducing coast-down time cuts down on mixture volume pumped into muffler.

The loud bang isn't good for the nerves nor the muffler baffling .

Info by Richard Christensen

Doing some maintenance on 30 year old tractor the other day and got to thinking a lot of people new to this hobby complain about their tractors missing or backfiring. Here is a good example of why plug, points, and carb adjustment doesn't always fix the problem.



This is why Kohler recommends de-carbon the head and block and a new head gasket on a regular basis. Some times you wonder how the valves can even close with the build up around them. For an engine to run good you need to bring in a good fuel/air mixture, ignite it and exhaust it and you don't need a build up like this in your way.