It's been a really $hitty day, not only will my rider not run, but my push mower also is having attitude issues. As the header states it is a MTDPro with a B&S 675 series motor that takes a few pulls to start and revs up fine, then sputters for a minute or 2, surges, sputters again for a few seconds and dies.
I've pulled the carb and cleaned it, but it was clean.
The first thing I check when I see this is fuel, water or dirt contamination. Clean the carb again, making sure the main nozzle and bowl nut jets are very clean. Then run some fuel from the tank into a glass jar and see how it looks and smells.
HUH, go figure...the good news is a second cleaning of the carb and a flush of the fuel line and it ran like a charm. The bad news is it ran like so good that an hour later I finally got done walking around my hayfield...um I mean yard, and it looks like a lawn again.
No it was fresh fuel bought only a few days ago. The mower had sat with an empty tank for 2 years in an outdoor shed, so I'm thinking that there was some crud in the bottom of the tank that when I filled my tank got flushed into the line and sucked into the carb. The first time I cleaned it it seemed clean but I also didn't flush the fuel line. So the second time I cleaned the carb, I also flushed the fuel line and tank, filled it with fuel from the same gas can, and it ran perfectly.
Thanks for all the help with both this and my riding mower's issues.