No-start snowblower
- Thread starter DAC17
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If you have checked for spark, pull the plug and put a teaspoon of gas into the cylinder. If it fires up then dies you probably have a piece of dirt in the carb jet. 8 month old gas is probably fine.
If you can get it to start using the gas in the plug hole method, siphon out the old gas in the tank and replace it with fresh stuff and a little seafoam. That will help clean the carb out if its only slightly gunked up. However, if it was my blower, I would be taking the carb off to clean it since it will gunk up very fast if I dont put good stabilizer in it.
My suggestions, by the way, depend on if you have a Tecumseh engine made in the last 7 - 10 years.
Shut off gas supply via valve or pinched line. Unscrew bowl nut that holds bowl on. Pull off bowl and wipe out well. Look at bowl nut. It has a hole right down through the middle that needs to be checked for blockage. A stripped bread wrapper will poke through and clean it up. Carb cleaner will blow through and help out too. The two larger holes at the base of the bowl nut shouldn't be a problem, but look through to make sure they're clear. The tiny pinhole on the side, towards the tip of the bowl nut, right above the threads, needs to be cleared also. You can reassemble and run it or do one more thing.
Another quick step to pretty much finish your carb clean is to...Look at the side of the carb. Notice the round spot where an adjustment screw would be on older models. The round thing you're looking at is a little plastic cup that covers a screw. Trash the cover and take out the screw. While the bowl is off, squirt carb cleaner through the screw hole. It should come out of the bottom of the carb. Then, make sure the holes in the screw itself are "poked" out. The bread wrapper will work fine there too (I use a torch tip cleaner). The screw just goes all the way in...it's not an adjustment. Reassemble and have fun.
AND, you know...since you have the bowl off and the gas will flow freely from the tank and out of the carb, this is an excellent chance to empty the tank of older gas…most of it anyway.
Shut off gas supply via valve or pinched line. Unscrew bowl nut that holds bowl on. Pull off bowl and wipe out well. Look at bowl nut. It has a hole right down through the middle that needs to be checked for blockage. A stripped bread wrapper will poke through and clean it up. Carb cleaner will blow through and help out too. The two larger holes at the base of the bowl nut shouldn't be a problem, but look through to make sure they're clear. The tiny pinhole on the side, towards the tip of the bowl nut, right above the threads, needs to be cleared also. You can reassemble and run it or do one more thing.
Another quick step to pretty much finish your carb clean is to...Look at the side of the carb. Notice the round spot where an adjustment screw would be on older models. The round thing you're looking at is a little plastic cup that covers a screw. Trash the cover and take out the screw. While the bowl is off, squirt carb cleaner through the screw hole. It should come out of the bottom of the carb. Then, make sure the holes in the screw itself are "poked" out. The bread wrapper will work fine there too (I use a torch tip cleaner). The screw just goes all the way in...it's not an adjustment. Reassemble and have fun.
AND, you know...since you have the bowl off and the gas will flow freely from the tank and out of the carb, this is an excellent chance to empty the tank of older gas…most of it anyway.
Yeehaw1960, Great post about cleaning the carb on Tecumseh engines.
OP by DAC17 said: "Likely my own fault; I left the gas in it over the summer. Any suggestions about how to get it running again, if it's the gas? Anything short of draining the tank and putting in new gas?"
DAC17, Wake up and smell the oil. And I do mean that literally. Open up the fuel cap and take a whiff. If it don't smell like gasoline, then it ain't gasoline, it is now oil. And it ain't gona get that engine to run. Especially in cold weather. It is really that simple. If you are lucky all you have to do is to drain the used, use to be gasoline / now oil, and drain the carb and put fresh gas in. You can not rejuvenate what use to be gasoline once it goes bad.
Check the spark-plug and if it has any black deposit on the inside ceramic chuck it, gap a new one and put it in.
While you are at it give that engine the respect it deserves if you want to get more time out of it. Change the crank case oil. GC is a fantastic choice for any 4 cycle snow blower crank case oil. It is Castrol Syntec 0w30 European Formula. The ONLY place to get it is at Pep-Boys and Auto Zone. Be sure it says European Formula on the front. It is good down to -40 F or -40C. (-40 is the cross over point where F=C). If you think you might be using your snow-blower it at colder than -40 then go with M1 0w30 FULL SYNTHETIC, that is good down to -50C.
Try to start it and if it does not run correctly then go for cleaning the carb.
The above post gave some excellent advice on cleaning the carb.
OP by DAC17 said: "Likely my own fault; I left the gas in it over the summer. Any suggestions about how to get it running again, if it's the gas? Anything short of draining the tank and putting in new gas?"
DAC17, Wake up and smell the oil. And I do mean that literally. Open up the fuel cap and take a whiff. If it don't smell like gasoline, then it ain't gasoline, it is now oil. And it ain't gona get that engine to run. Especially in cold weather. It is really that simple. If you are lucky all you have to do is to drain the used, use to be gasoline / now oil, and drain the carb and put fresh gas in. You can not rejuvenate what use to be gasoline once it goes bad.
Check the spark-plug and if it has any black deposit on the inside ceramic chuck it, gap a new one and put it in.
While you are at it give that engine the respect it deserves if you want to get more time out of it. Change the crank case oil. GC is a fantastic choice for any 4 cycle snow blower crank case oil. It is Castrol Syntec 0w30 European Formula. The ONLY place to get it is at Pep-Boys and Auto Zone. Be sure it says European Formula on the front. It is good down to -40 F or -40C. (-40 is the cross over point where F=C). If you think you might be using your snow-blower it at colder than -40 then go with M1 0w30 FULL SYNTHETIC, that is good down to -50C.
Try to start it and if it does not run correctly then go for cleaning the carb.
The above post gave some excellent advice on cleaning the carb.
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I've been told that Starter fluid is some pretty radical stuff that could damage a small engine in the short run. But you are right. I once new a guy who would pick a mower out of the trash, shoot starter fluid into it and start it a few times to get the contents of the bowl to suck up into the engine and run for their life out the muffler. He'd have it for sale the same afternoon.
Ether is pretty nasty stuff if used wrong.
A shot or two won't hurt. I've done it myself a few times.
You don't want to overdo though.
It's explosive; more so that gasoline so if used to excess, it could blow the head off a motor or hole a piston.
A shot or two won't hurt. I've done it myself a few times.
You don't want to overdo though.
It's explosive; more so that gasoline so if used to excess, it could blow the head off a motor or hole a piston.
" If the machine ran with the ether but doesn't run without it, stop using it and move on to diagnosing the problem."
That would be fuel problems.
That would be fuel problems.
Did you get the beast running?
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