Had this problem on one of my craftsman it would run with the clutch depressed if I sat on the seat and either I pulled the blade switch it would kill the engine if I let the clutch it would kill the engine so was looking at the wiring and found a relay behind the battery I had a bunch of relays...
I have one of those and I needed head gaskets and at partstree.com when you look for the gaskets it say that if you have the engine I sorta forgot but up to a certain Ser.# use this gasket and use this one after. But you can call them and they can help. Hope that helps
