Hi all, new to the forum, first post. I've been browsing various places on help getting my John Deere LA115 mower to run. Let me preface this by saying I am not very mechanically inclined, and I might not get a lot of technical jargon right, and might appear to be an idiot in this area. Please forgive me.
Anyway, the thing is at least at year old, not sure (it's not really mine but my father-in-law's). I had to replace the battery which was easy, and I got it to run for a few minutes before it would just "crap out" on me. It would sputter and stall. This was made worse when I was actually mowing. It seems like it would run better when I was just riding it around with no blades going.
I read that the air filter can be a problem, so I replaced that. Still nothing. I also read that the spark plug could be a problem, and that's where I feel I may have screwed up. Looking online, I saw that to change it I had to pull the boot right off it, and then "unscrew" the spark plug. Of course I lack the proper tool to do so, and now I find I can't really get the boot back on the spark plug. It goes on to cover about half the plug, but when it was on there before it covered almost the whole thing. But again, not sure if that's my main problem, because for a little while it did run with the boot half-way on.
I do know it has old gas in it, but there wasn't much. I was able to take fresh gas I had recently dumped into a non-working lawnmower and drain that out (about 32 ounces) and add that in; again, it ran for a while on that.
The point I'm at now is the mower will crank and crank and crank and there's sort of a hollow "putt-putt" sound from the carborator. I've messed with the choke some, doesn't help. At my nearest opportunity I'm going to put some more fresh gas in it, and the guy at wal-mart said to put in a little of that Heet gas treatment to take care of any water. Beyond that, I dunno what do short of paying someone professionally to fix it, but I'd kinda like to do it myself if possible.
Sorry for the TLDR and thanks in advance for any advice!
Anyway, the thing is at least at year old, not sure (it's not really mine but my father-in-law's). I had to replace the battery which was easy, and I got it to run for a few minutes before it would just "crap out" on me. It would sputter and stall. This was made worse when I was actually mowing. It seems like it would run better when I was just riding it around with no blades going.
I read that the air filter can be a problem, so I replaced that. Still nothing. I also read that the spark plug could be a problem, and that's where I feel I may have screwed up. Looking online, I saw that to change it I had to pull the boot right off it, and then "unscrew" the spark plug. Of course I lack the proper tool to do so, and now I find I can't really get the boot back on the spark plug. It goes on to cover about half the plug, but when it was on there before it covered almost the whole thing. But again, not sure if that's my main problem, because for a little while it did run with the boot half-way on.
I do know it has old gas in it, but there wasn't much. I was able to take fresh gas I had recently dumped into a non-working lawnmower and drain that out (about 32 ounces) and add that in; again, it ran for a while on that.
The point I'm at now is the mower will crank and crank and crank and there's sort of a hollow "putt-putt" sound from the carborator. I've messed with the choke some, doesn't help. At my nearest opportunity I'm going to put some more fresh gas in it, and the guy at wal-mart said to put in a little of that Heet gas treatment to take care of any water. Beyond that, I dunno what do short of paying someone professionally to fix it, but I'd kinda like to do it myself if possible.
Sorry for the TLDR and thanks in advance for any advice!