CX gator not starting and/or just running when choked

[rogerh]

All,

I'm new here (haven't had the gator for that long) and need some help. We bought a used cx about 9 months ago to use around the farm. It's been one of the more useful things we own and has been flawless until now. My help was using it the other day and it quit running on him ... it appeared to be empty or at least low on fuel. I put some gas in it and eventually got it to crank while pulling on the choke. As soon as I let of of the choke it quit running again, got it started again with choke, it died again as soon as I let off of the choke ... hence it would only run with the choke pulled out. I also noticed that it was smoking really badly. While I had it running I drove it about 100 yards (with choke pulled out and smoking like crazy); of course I had to get off to open a gate and the gator quit running. Tried cranking it again and it would not crank with choke in or out (it did fire slightly one time and back fired) but that was it. I have read the fuel pumps go out predictably on these models ... could that be the problem or is there something more obvious that has failed ... please help.

Thanks for any input,
Roger

[jergeod]

Well with the smoke deal I would be doing a compression test to see if everything inside is ok, sounds like you may be down on compression.

[rogerh]

Hey, thanks for the input. Prior to this the gator never smoked, was easy to start and had plenty of power. So a compression issue wasn't my first assumption ... but I'm not saying its not it. I guess I am wondering if its the fuel pump because I've heard those pumps do have a rather short life span and I did remove it from the machine and it was dry on the "exit" side (like no fuel was getting through it). That coupled with it only running on choke had me pointed in that direction ... but I really don't want to start blindly replace parts, especially the pump since it is rather expensive at about 50 bucks, if there was an obvious reason to believe something else is wrong. I will check the compression in the next couple of days to see what its like. In the mean time I welcome all other input.

Roger

[prwttsh]

I solved my dying/no fuel problem by putting on an electric fuel pump. Local JD dealer couldn't figure it out. :Bnghd: