Outdoor Power Equipment and Small Engines - Kohler cv15s fuel solenoid - maybe

I have a riding mower with a Kohler CV15S engine. The engine starts OK but after about 10 minutes it looses power and stops. I cant restart it for about 10 minutes. I took it to my normal repair guy and he has gone through all of the normal things but today called and said that he gave up. He also tried a new coil without luck. I am suspicious of the fuel solenoid. The unit gets so hot you cant touch it after a few minutes of operation. I suspect it is getting so hot it is producing a vapor lock in the carb. Should the solenoid get that hot?

Well they do get hot, but I don't think so hot that you can't touch it. I don't think that it's causing a vapor lock in your carburetor, however it may just stop working and the plunger may be cutting off the fuel supply to the engine. Most of these solenoids on Kohler engines can be disassembled, if yours can, then I would remove the plunger from the solenoid and then reinstall it on the carburetor. Leave it unplugged and run your engine, if it works alright, then you need to replace the fuel solenoid. You can use it without the solenoid, but you might get a bang when you shut the engine off.

Another tech had the mower for a couple of weeks and gave up. Same thing happens. Engine runs for about 20 minutes. Then stops with backfires. The fuel solenoid is so hot you cant touch it. In the engine manual, the solenoid power comes from two points and both show diodes in the path to the solenoid. No diodes were found on examining the engine. The symbol for the diodes does not identify them as a zener diode used to reduce the voltage from the battery to some lower level to reduce the current thru the solenoid. I have checked the solenoid and it trips at about 8 volts. It is not configured so that you can remove the valve.

This seems to be a problem identified by several people submitting questions but I havent seen a thread where the problem was solved. Help!! My grass is growing rapidly!:wall:

Can you post the spec number off of your engine please?

Have you checked for spark at the plug when it dies? Sounds a lot like coil failure to me.

It's normal for the solenoid to get hot. I doubt it's your problem, but strange things happen.