Hello. I have 2004 Yard Machine with a 17.5 Briggs engine. Over the weekend as I was mowing it started to cut out and stumble. It starting running fine and I continued to mow. About 30 minutes later it did it again. It finally got to where it cut completely off and would not start. I finally got it to run, but it would continue to cut off and stumble. Playing with the choke would help make it run better (enough to get it to the garage).

Today I dove in and tried to fix it. Unscrewing the gas cap doe snot help. I have tested the fire when it will not run and the fire is fine. Sounds like it is not getting gas. This is the 17.5 OHV engine (31G7770165E1). About 3 years ago I replaced the cam as the compression release mechanism busted.

Earlier this year it would continue to drain gas through the carb with the engine off. I replaced the needle valve and it was fine for a couple of weeks but started that again. I put a gas cut off switch in the fuel line and have just been shutting it off when not in use.

Today when diagnosing the problem I noticed that when it cuts out the throttle switch gets very erratic. Is this normal or could the governor be jumping around?

Sounds like a carb issue to me, but I just wanted some input into whether a governor problem could do this. Any suggestions on fixing it.

Thanks for any help.