I recently bought a used (2004, I think) Bolens 38" lawn tractor with aa 15.5 hp B&S engine for next to nothing. It needed a new carbeurator and battery, which I have now replaced. The mower cranks fine and runs fine without the blades engaged. Once the blades are engaged and it begins cutting, the mower will intermittently try to stall out. If you depress the Brake, the engine returns to normal. This will happen a few times in a row, but then it might cut for a few minutes before trying to stall again. After 10 or so minutes of this annoying issue, it seems to get more frequent until it is too frequent to continue. Oh, and when it tries to stall, it backfires, sometimes very badly.
My first thought is a Safety Interlock Switch is causing this, but I would have thought it would not be so intermittent or would not get worse with time. This mower does not have a seat safety switch and also will cut in reverse. Both of those features I thought were not possible due to safety switches, so I suspect the previous owner may have disabled both of those switches, if they did once exist.
I would appreciate anyone's insight into what I am dealing with and thoughts on what would be the most logical thing to try to get this corrected.
Thanks
My first thought is a Safety Interlock Switch is causing this, but I would have thought it would not be so intermittent or would not get worse with time. This mower does not have a seat safety switch and also will cut in reverse. Both of those features I thought were not possible due to safety switches, so I suspect the previous owner may have disabled both of those switches, if they did once exist.
I would appreciate anyone's insight into what I am dealing with and thoughts on what would be the most logical thing to try to get this corrected.
Thanks