kawasaki 18hp

Has anyone had a problem with this motor vapor locking. On really hot days my garden TRACTOR will starve for fuel and die if I catch it I can shove the choke up and work it through it. then it will run fine. I have changed fuel filters already and they look fine. tested coils and they look fine. took it to the shop and they can't find any thing. also checked the vent cap on the tank. SOMBODY PLEASE HELP this is driving me nuts. thanks

This happened to me and it was vent hole in gas filler cap was plugged up.

Had the same problem with a generator, the screen in the tank rotted away so I put an inline filter in place. Would only run about 10 minutes, the filter kept filling with vapor. Finally got the filter positioned so the outlet was at the top, that bled the vapor out of the filter into the carb, problem solved...

Some simple things to check.
1) I have had an exhaust leak cause the same issue. On a JD 265 garden tractor the thing would run like a top until I would put the hood back on it. I had the hood off to get to the carb. Finally had it running and felt hot air blowing up. Found a small hole in the muffler. It was making it too hot under the hood. Causing it to vapor lock.

2) Remove some of the air shrouds on the motor and see if anything is stuck in the cooling fins. I have had several that had stuff stuff in the fins. It made them run hot and act funny. Mice are bad about building nest in there. Even had a newer Kohler motor this spring come in with a bent push rod. I check it all over and could not see much wrong. Found the cooling fins plugged up. Got to looking found the heads where getting too hot and the valves would hang up. Then the push rods would fall out of the rocker arm.

3) you motor should have a fuel pump on it check to see if you have good pressure and flow.

4) Son just found this on his mower. The fuel line was falling apart internally and would not let fuel flow like it should. The mower would die an restart right back up and run a few more minutes to die again.

My fathers JD 265 with a Kawasaki would occasionally starve for fuel last summer. Is it vapor locking or starving for fuel? Eventually I took the fuel line off at the pump and blew back into the tank with compressed air and it hasn't missed a beat since. By rights the tank should be removed and cleaned but I hate working on lawn mowers almost as much as I hate cutting grass. On the subject of Kawasaki's, I always found this one seemed to need to be cranked excessively to get it to start. Is that the nature of them? I did find that the throttle/choke linkage wasn't adjusted properly and the choke was only partially coming on and when adjusted that helped some but I still think it takes more cranking then it should to get it going.

Ours needs to crank a few revolutions before it starts, but it always starts, but then it is very easy on fuel. When it was new I checked to make sure the choke was closing all the way and it was, so its the nature of the beast!

(quoted from post at 18:32:23 05/09/12) My fathers JD 265 with a Kawasaki would occasionally starve for fuel last summer. Is it vapor locking or starving for fuel? Eventually I took the fuel line off at the pump and blew back into the tank with compressed air and it hasn't missed a beat since. By rights the tank should be removed and cleaned but I hate working on lawn mowers almost as much as I hate cutting grass. On the subject of Kawasaki's, I always found this one seemed to need to be cranked excessively to get it to start. Is that the nature of them? I did find that the throttle/choke linkage wasn't adjusted properly and the choke was only partially coming on and when adjusted that helped some but I still think it takes more cranking then it should to get it going.

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I put a post on here a few weeks back about the Kawi in my ZT needing a long crank. The response was probably a bad check valve in the pump.

My JD 160 lawn tractor has an 11hp Kawasaki. Beautiful engine, quiet, lots of power but yeah, it takes a few cranks to get 'er going. I think I might try rebuilding the fuel pump and see if that helps.
Another thing I found on mine was the fuel shutoff right at the back by the fuel filler would for some reason not open all the way when opened up. I had to close it and re-open it a couple times otherwise it would starve for fuel. I quit turning it off after that 'cause it's not gravity feed anyway and no fuel comes from the tank with the engine off.