John Deere L130 Operating Issues

[angleiron]

I am having some issues with the L130 I own. At the moment it starts fine, but when I start to throttle it down to about 1/2 way it will start to surge...and then when I try to bring it down to its lowest throttle setting it dies. It does this with the choke off, and at half choke it is a little better but does not stop it from happening.

Air filter is fine, new fuel filter, gas cap air vent hole is not plugged. I am prettty mechanical, so I would like to do the work myself. So at this point I was curious what else I should be looking for? This model has a pulsed fuel pump that works off of the engine vacuum I believe, so is this the cuplrit?

I don't want to just start buying random parts...so any help would be appreciated.

 

[mostly_gas]

If the mower runs OK at full throttle, it's not lik;y the fuel pump. Since the chokes helps it indicates the idle circuit is restricted or plugged. Clean the fuel bowel out and blow out the carb passages backwards if possible.

 

[David-Davies]

It sounds like your idle jets are pluged. BUT check out your electrical system, primary and secondary first. Use a timing light and watch the timing markes, to see if they are steady or jump around, because something is lose. The high RPM's might be keeping things lined up, and they come out of sink at a lower RPM. Did this happen all of a sudden, or slowly get worse.
Dave

 

[angleiron]

Since it it is spring, it was time to fire up the JD. Last fall I changed everything that I could as far as filters, and when I put the tractor away it was running good.

Today it would not run with the choke in one position...I had to move it from full choke for awhile to no choke, and all points in between. Any recommendations on what it could be?

Thanks