Garden tractor starts cold, not hot??

I thought I had this tractor fixed, before it would not start cold without pouring gas in the carb, I put on a new fuel line, new fuel filter, air filter, and adjusted the choke cable so the choke was closing all the way, no more problems starting cold but, now once its hot and I shut it off it takes an hour before it will start, didn't even start with ether.
18 horse Briggs opposing twin, not an overhead valve engine
What you guys think is wrong with this, Dam thing?

 

Bad coil possibly that fails when hot? I would pull a plug when it's hot and see if it's getting spark.

 

I second the bad coil. Make sure it doesn't just have spark-make sure it has a strong spark when hot.

 

The other day when it would not start, I thought maybe it wasn't getting spark, so I hooked up a spark tester, but I could not see anything in it, I thought the spark tester might be not working
then I was holding my hand under it to see it better and I was grounded and I got a small shock .
Shouldn't I have gotten a pretty good jolt from it?
Is there a test that I can do to be sure it is a bad coil before I buy one, like check the voltage from the plug wire or something

 

Yeah, you should have gotten pretty good zap from it.

 

Chances are your coil didn't have enough voltage to show up on the spark tester but good enough to zap you. Try the spark tester when the engine will run or on something else to make sure it is working. I'm betting you have a bad coil. It isn't uncommon for coils to fail when hot.

 

I'd pull the carburetor apart and check the float level. Check the float bowl for junk in the bottom also.

 

Yep, pulling the carb and cleaning it, as well as checking for spark or buying a new coil take care of the 2 harder parts of the fuel, air, and spark equation.

 

next time before I start it up cold I will put the spark tester on inside the shed, I would go do it right now in the dark but I am wore out and it just started to rain.
New coil not too bad 40 bucks OEM

 

Try this before you start buying parts. When mower is hot and won't start take off air cleaner and pour some gas down the carb. If it starts its carb issue.

 

tried starting fluid it wouldn't start, only after it SAT for an hour started right up, I'll do some more checking before I buy anything, but I think the guys are right about the coil, doesn't surprise me it is 20 years old

 

Since it wouldn't start even with starting fluid, but would start when it cooled off, that nails the coil diagnosis.

 

You just set the gap on the magneto, with a feeler gauge right?
Maybe 2 feeler gauges would be better one on each end?
I have 4 of them

 

Yep, that's all. A matchbook works too. I had to replace the coil on my 16.5 HP single ohv Briggs on my mtd lawn tractor. It's not as picky as your think.

 

A business card is about the right thickness also.

 

Could be a bad bat have a truck that would only start when it was cold I know makes no sense but when it was warm and you shut it off it did not have enough power to restart until to cooled off put new bat on starts up every time no problem.

 

I know NOTHING about tractors, but I do have a car hobby. This was a common symptom of a bad/going main relay in the late 80s. If a tractor has something equivalent to that part, try fiddling in there.

 

Well so far so good put a new coil on and it has not failed to start.
Put in some new plugs while I was at it
Here is the old coil and it seems like the mice had a little lunch on the wire

 

Good deal!

That's why I had to replace my coil on my lawn tractor. Mice chewed the plug wire right at the coil. No way to fix it.

 

Your mower has one coil so when you dont have spark you wont have spark on each side.