I have a 2001 model Honda Harmony H2113HDA riding mower that I will admit I have not cared for as well as should:

- left gas in it over the winter
- left the battery in it over the winter

When I fired it up this spring I had a couple of issues:

- it would start but then cut out pretty quickly, then not start at all. Fixed that issue by charging the battery
- started up and ran for a few minutes but sputtered then stopped. waited a few minutes and fired it up again - same result. noticed that it quit immediately when I engaged the mower deck. Opened the fuel line and drained all the gas out and replaced with fresh gas. Fired it up and noticed that it sounded real good and everything seemed fine. Got through mowing the front yard and it quit on me. Changed out the air filter and opened the carburetor fuel dump screw. It fired up right away and I put it back in the shed. I am not sure I have conquered the quitting problem. I ordered the fuel filter and spark plug. Can you think of anything else I should look at or change out? Thanks for your thoughts, comments, and advice

 

The next time you run the mower pay attention to how long it runs before dying and how it dies. I'm thinking of two possibilities.

One is that the fuel cap may not be venting properly. The motor starts and runs fine but over time it draws a vacuum in the fuel tank until the carburetor can no longer get fuel. The engine may sputter or surge briefly before dying as the mixture goes lean from lack of fuel.

The other possibility is a bad coil which sits right on top of the engine next to the flywheel. They sometimes fail when hot. The engine starts and runs fine but when it gets up to full temperature (hot) and the heat soaks into the coil it just suddenly stops working and the engine just dies. Usually without sputtering. When the coil cools it often starts working again making the problem annoying to diagnose.

Go ahead and change your fuel filter and spark plug. It certainly will not hurt as you could have a spark plug starting to go.