1999 club car 350fe crank no start

[Strawberry]

Hi everyone,

New here and super novice when it comes to small engines and grammar so please forgive me. Anyways I bought a 1999 club car carry all turf II xrt. Ran great for about a month never had any issues. One day I was going up my steep driveway and the engine was a bit cold, made a weird noise on the way up but still had the same power just a weird loud noise. Never happened again after that day, Not grinding or anything of that nature. Anyways parked it ran great after that. Then started missing or hiccuping at higher rpms. Still ran fine. Was going on a flat street and just ran out of gas seemed like? No got gas? So long story shorter I’ve changed all fuel filters, fuel pump, fuel lines, drained gas tank, cleaned carb “twice”new air cleaner. Still no start. Tried undoing the brown wire to bypass the rpm limiter, Played with the service mode to try in neutral and spray carb cleaner for nothing not even a try to start. Pulled spark plug out grounded to the head and seems to have great spark and cranking. I guess my question is if I have great spark while cranking why won’t it start with carb cleaner? Gas lines? Does this eliminate the possibilities of it being the rpm limiter, micro switches, solenoid?? Please help and thanks in advance.

[Strawberry]

Also forgot to mention that with the ignition off I can still turn on the head lights and reverse makes the back up sound. Don’t know if it did this when I first bought it,I thought this would only happen if my key is in the on position? Would also sometimes start in neutral while not in service mode? Could my ignition key be the issue? Or my F-N-R shifter be it? Like I said only cranks in the on position not in off just don’t know why there’s still power to some things when the key is off.

[meimk]

Have you checked compression? If you have spark & fuel, compression is the 3rd magic ingredient to make it run. Outside possibility is the spark timing being off. I've seen one or two cases where the flywheel woodruff key sheered off and the flywheel turned in relation to the crankshaft, so they had spark - but at the wrong time. Pretty rare.

[Strawberry]

Just checked compression, highest it goes it is 60-65 psi. Think I’m using the tester right. Is that to low? Fe350 w/o acr. This is on a cold engine.

[Strawberry]

Went up to 70 psi without all the adapters on the compression kit. Still too low?

[CP241]

With ACR that would be a good reading.

Without ACR that’s waaaaaay low. Should be 165-170psi

Acr (automatic compression release) I believe was used on the key start carryalls. I haven’t seen everything (and don’t claim to) but I’ve had several pedal start carryalls and never seen one with ACR. They may be out there but I just haven’t had one.

[CP241]

Try squirting a cap full of motor oil in the spark plug hole and check compression again. Make sure to hold the carb open all the way by hand to rule out the governor not opening the throttle. Closed throttle = no air incoming = no air to compress = low compression readings.

[Strawberry]

Wet test, one cap full in spark plug hole started reading at 90psi then went up to 140 so I put the plug back in. Wouldn’t start with carb cleaner sprayed as well, did another compression check back down to 95psi or so. So what does this mean? Bad rings?

[CP241]

If compression goes up significantly when you add some oil to the cylinder, rings are worn. Time for a rebuild. Check the “fe290 rebuild” thread in the sticky section here. With very very minor differences, a fe350 is really not any different.

[Strawberry]

Awesome I think that’s above my pay grade but maybe I’ll give it a go…unless anyone knows a good small engine mechanic in San Diego?