22HP Kohler Courage
 

My Daughter and Son-in-Law own a couple of Cub Cadets. One of them is a LTX1046 Lawn Tractor. It has the Kohler Courage model, at 22HP. It is a 2012 with 216 hrs on the meter.

I was over at their place yesterday, and my Daughter was complaining that this LTX1046 was "backing firing or popping" and seem to have less power when the engine is under load, ie: mowing lawn.

Looked it over and checked the obvious things first. All appeared to be OK. Took it for a spin myself, and it seemed like it wasn't getting enough gas. Questioning my Son-in-Law, he stated he put a new fuel filter on, cleaned the fairly new air filter, checked the Spark Plugs (seemed clean & good) and stopped there.

I noticed that looking at this engine, Kohler used a "vacuum operated" fuel pump, on the side of of the blower housing. Question, are these type of fuel pumps noted for any issues ??

Next, I noticed that the Fuel Tank, on this model of tractor, is higher than the Carb on this engine. Next Question, couldn't one just by-pass the fuel pump, and let gravity supply the Carb?

Any thoughts??

:bigthink:

My thoughts are, I would try bypassing both the pump and the filter just to see if anything improves. If yes, then backup, bypassing one, then the other.

Sometimes the fuel filters are "flow direction" critical. You might check if that could be a cause.

And check the vent hole in the fuel cap for clogging.

This is a bit of a stretch Roland but worth noting I guess. I worked on
one of those this summer with the same problems at similar hours.
Eventually discovered the accelerator pump on the carb had the diaghrams
completely desintegrated.
Here is the big stretch. Under the valve cover on one side the rocker arm
assembly had come completely apart. Put that all back together and instantly
had compression that was weak before. Go figure.

Ken

Ken:

Did that engine have Low Compression on that particular cylinder ??

:bigthink:

It did. It was running 130 on the good side and amazingly enough still had
40 on the side that came apart. After reassembly compression came right
up to 130. It was acting very similar to what you describe. It actually ran
although poorly and as soon as you put a load on it just fell on its
face.

Ken

Ken:

Thanks, I'll take my Compression Tester along on my next trip over there and check it out.

:IH Trusted Hand:

Thanks Ken and Ironman for the replies. Will check into this situation this weekend.

Don't know if this will help Roland but I do have the PDF of the service
manual for that engine. If you want to PM me an email address I will send
it to you. Tried to attach it here but couldn't get it to work. To big I think.

Ken

I have the Parts & Service manual for that SV715 engine. Thanks.