It is finally warm enough to start mowing the grass here in NC and my L120 John Deere mower will not start. It was running fine when I last used it October of last year. The battery was dead to begin with and would not charge so I replaced it. Now the mower cranks but will not catch. I replaced the fuel filter and this did not help. It is a clear filter and I don't see any fuel in the filter housing. Is there an easy way to tell if the fuel pump is bad or a line is clogged? Any other suggestions would be helpful. The fuel pump appears to be a mechanical pump and not a vacuum one. Thanks in advance for the help.

I have a riding mower made back in 2002...Troy Bilt LTX 1842 with a B&S 18.5 Intek engine (engine model number is 31D777 0233E1) with around 530 hours on it... last season a symptom surfaced...cranks without a problem, ideals fine at the rabbit speed, but when I engaged the blades, the engine immediately sputtered and struggled to stay running...I would immediately dis engage the blades, and it would begin idling fine...I would then engage blades and same problem happened...I would do this about 8 times until finally, it would spin blades and run fine, so I mowed yard...it did this everytime...also, I could drive it around without a problem with engine sputtering...only does it when blades engage... Fast forward to this season: tried to start it yesterday and it started fine...engage blades and sputter and struggled...I did this again several times, but this year I could never get it to finally run with blades engaged...I pulled the deck thinking a problem might be with spindles or pulleys not moving freely...all pulleys are moving freely and quietly... Noticed belts are a little rough looking this year...they were bad last year, but they never broke or stretched enough to come off... So,!donany of you on the forum have a suggestion of where I should start trouble shooting? No am at a loss and don't want to give up on the lower completely yet...