My dad has a zero turn Toro lawn mower with a twin cylinder motor on it. Cant remember if it is briggs and straton or Kohler. Anyways, he didnt mow much this summer because of no rain to make the grass grow so it set for a good long while with old gas in it.

He had me come look at it to see what was wrong. He could only get it to run on full choke at first. When easing the choke off the motor would sputter and die. We drained out the old gas out of the tank, and air filter is clean. Fuel filter looks to be clean but and gas is filling up in the bowl. I pulled off the carb and sprayed it out with carb cleaner. I think there was build up of old varnished gas in the orfice where the float needle is. Put the carb back on and the motor now runs on half choke but wont run on full choke or on "Run" with clean gas.

I got to reading about how you are not supposed to let the float fall all the way down when you take off the carb bowl. I didnt know that at first so when i took off the carb bowl i had the float hanging. We took off the carb again because it was only running on half choke and soaked it in some carb cleaner in a bucket, now my dad has to get new gaskets as the carb cleaner has chewed up the gaskets. He is going to get a new float, needle and float hinge, and new fuel filter.

Could the needle being damaged from me letting the float hang cause it to only run on half choke? Carb should be clean of old gas gunk after i thoroughly cleaned it. Any other suggestins to look for.

CW.....put this in OFF TOPIC or AUTO section and more people will see it.

I wish I could help more with the problem.

If itsa briggs check the seat where the needle goes up in.If its plastic then replace it.Pull the carb and take a sewing needle and clean every orfice you can find on the carb body out.soaking it in berrymans doesnt clean out those small port holes.

Run some Sea Foam in the gas and see if that might clean it out. Worked on my generator.