On Aug 18, 8:37*pm, hibb wrote:
I have a 15 Hp Simplicity garden tractor with a Kohler engine. This
machine is about 13 years old and I have had it since it was new.

I went out to mow the grass this weekend and the engine died on me
after about a half an hour. It just suddenly stopped and made a couple
of small back-firing noises.

I noticed it did still have a few inches of gas in the tank but I
topped off the tank with fresh gas anyway. But before I put more gas
in it I took off the fuel filter and noticed there wasn't much gas
flow from the tank. I blew out the filter with air pressure and re-
installed the fuel filter. It still wouldn't start even after adding
more gas to the tank.

I poured a little bit of gas in the carburetor and it still wouldn't
fire. I spent some time trying to get the hydrostatic transmission
release lever to disengage so I could push it back into the garage but
never got that to work so I left it alone for a while.

After a few hours, I went out and it started right up. It ran good for
15 minutes and then quit again. I left it in the yard until yesterday
morning. It started right away and I pulled it into the garage. While
I was out and about yesterday, I picked up a new fuel filter and
installed it just in case that would help.

I started mowing the yard with it again today and had the same
problems. It ran good for about a half hour and quit. I waited a few
hours and it started and quit again after about 15 minutes.

I was very hot Sunday when this started but not as hot today and even
cooler this afternoon. But I'm still wondering if it has a vapor lock
problem.

Anybody got any more ideas I can try?

Thanks, David

That sounds like a problem I had with a John Deere. It turned out to
be the fuel tank was full of crap in the sump where the pickup tube
operates. I had to pull the tank and flush it several times to fix it,
but now it runs like a deer.