I went today to get the parts. After looking in the archives last night the TDM seemed to be a very likely culprit and the guy behind the counter agreed with me. Seems like they go out around 6-800 hours. Ours has about 735 hours.
It's only a $20 part so it's a good place to start looking at common failures. The new one is a round black plug looking deal, where as the old one which looked original was square (didn't think that was it untill I called and asked a service guy where to find it) and it was an easy swap. It's been cold & rainy all day so I haven't been able to test it yet, but I ran it for about 15 minutes or so putting the sides back on, and pulling a trailer to get some wood pellets from the storage shed to the house.
No signs of a problem yet, but will surely get a better test once the weather clears out and I can cut the rest of the lawn.
I know one guy mentioned the gas cap, but I already eliminated that as a culprit. A few days ago I was cutting at the farm and it started acting up. After a bit of screwing around, I reached back and took off the cap and it picked back up. It repeated this 3 or 4 times, untill I had the gas cap moff and noticed what looked like a spring loaded plunger on the bottom of it. I pushed it in while looking at it, screwed it back on and it ran fine the rest of the night. The next day while I was cutting my own lawn it acted up again but this time taking off the cap did nothing, and this time it actually shut down from full throttle in the middle of my yard while in the cut, without warning just like I shut the key off.
Like I said, not able to test it yet but seems to run better already. Could be all in my head too....
Donovan from Wisconsin
It's only a $20 part so it's a good place to start looking at common failures. The new one is a round black plug looking deal, where as the old one which looked original was square (didn't think that was it untill I called and asked a service guy where to find it) and it was an easy swap. It's been cold & rainy all day so I haven't been able to test it yet, but I ran it for about 15 minutes or so putting the sides back on, and pulling a trailer to get some wood pellets from the storage shed to the house.
No signs of a problem yet, but will surely get a better test once the weather clears out and I can cut the rest of the lawn.
I know one guy mentioned the gas cap, but I already eliminated that as a culprit. A few days ago I was cutting at the farm and it started acting up. After a bit of screwing around, I reached back and took off the cap and it picked back up. It repeated this 3 or 4 times, untill I had the gas cap moff and noticed what looked like a spring loaded plunger on the bottom of it. I pushed it in while looking at it, screwed it back on and it ran fine the rest of the night. The next day while I was cutting my own lawn it acted up again but this time taking off the cap did nothing, and this time it actually shut down from full throttle in the middle of my yard while in the cut, without warning just like I shut the key off.
Like I said, not able to test it yet but seems to run better already. Could be all in my head too....
Donovan from Wisconsin
