Flooding Out- UPDATE

Well....this morning, I figured I'd give the tractor one more try....wait for it to quit, and use the old test light to check electrics, as you guys had me convinced that the problem may be electrical. Well.....I didn't even make it once around my property- it quit after 5 minutes this time, at the point furthest from the house of course!

I used the test light to confirm that I was getting power to the coil (I was)- I checked the out-put side of the coil with the key on, and the light lit (is that good or bad?)

Let the tractor sit, and took mom to town- came back, ready to drive the tractor home....and it wouldn't stay running at all- I could play with the choke....and it would run a few seconds....and once I tapped the float bowl, and it ran for almost 30 seconds! -and I know it's something small and stupid...but man! is it annoying.

The rebuilt carb worked great when I got it- all last summer- and I started her up every 2 or 3 weeks during the winter...then, come this spring....nothing but trouble!

And yes...I am certain it will turn out to be something small and stupid. -if it were something major, it'd be easy to track down!

Oh well....at least having you guys to converse with and share my misery, makes it easier!

Welcome to the broken tractor support group!

Two things can cause this 1) carb adjustments or carb crud 2) leak in the intake manifold (it's sucking air in and diluting your fuel/air mixture.

Intake manifolds can leak either in the gaskets or by a burn thru within the manifold between the inake and exhaust. NORMALLY a burn thru, IF it's big enough, can be detected by what many mistake as missfire/sputtering/afterfire/backfire.

If you can get her running for long enough, you can spray WD40 around the manifold (DO NOT USE ether or other very highly flamable sprays) and if that seems to quiet the roughness down, you have a manifold gasket leak.

It's gotta be that darn carb! -but it worked so good last year! And I put Stabil in the gas over the winter, so it wouldn't gum up....and the carb is nice and clean inside- if the float level is the problem, why would it change if it was fine last summer?

Not the rubber seating end but the sides of the needle and the bore that the needle sits in.

I had my carb off 4 times one afternoon messing with it after the thing had set for a couple of years.
Finally figured out the needle was hanging, because it had shrp edges and burrs, as well as just enough 'shellac' in the bore to help it hang.

Did a light reaming of the bore with some some used 400 grit paper. Then cleaned up the shoulders of the needle at both ends with 200 grit.

Might put some packing with teflon tape around the throttle and choke shafts in the carb, too. hth..