[snypir]

My friend and neighbor has a 2135 that runs for about 30 minutes, dies, then needs to be cooled down and it'll start and run again. It has the 13HP Kohler and is a 1996.

When I looked into the "runs for awhile and dies" kinds of issues I came across the coil as maybe being bad, and that was replaced but it still dies. The other issue is vapor lock. When it shut off this last time, he opened the gas cap but didn't hear any suction. We had cleaned the block off, new air filter and the tractor only has about 200 hours on it. He also tried running it without the sides on, and it didn't help.

It does a sort of sputtering dieing thing, and I can see the fuel filter go empty when it dies, but it died once after starting it again and the fuel filter was full, so I'm not sure if that means anything.

I was thinking vapor lock or maybe a vacuum leak? He's had this one for 3-4 years and its only started doing it this year, so I was thinking maybe a vacuum leak developed somewhere but at 200 hours it seems like a short time to get a bad gasket.

I tend to ramble, but the question is what can be done about vapor lock? Would moving the metal fuel line away from the block be a good idea and maybe routing it around the outside of the plastic flywheel guard? Or is it more likely a vacuum leak and without gauges how might one figure out if its vapor lock or a leak?