"Eric in North TX" wrote in message
...
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.

I bought a new Deere and it did the same thing. They took it back and
changed the seat. Told me the seat switch was bad.

They first told me it could be trash in the gas. I doubted that as I bought
a new 5 gallon gas can and filled it up on the way home. The gas was less
than an hour out of the pump. If it was any bad stuff in the gas it had to
come from the Deere place and be the small ammount they used to deliver it
with.