Outdoor Power Equipment (Lawn Mowers, Snow Blowers, Chain Saws and more) Discussions

Hi,

I own a Toro recycler with a 6.5 tecumseh engine.   When I would start it, it would run and then almost shut off and then run again and so on for the first five minutes or so until it would level off. I changed the spark plug as well as air cleaner.  For the past couple of weeks though I could only get it to start momentarily and as soon as it would start it would die.  Tonight after draining the gas out and putting some fresh gas in I was able to get it to run for a few minutes again doing what it would do originally.  I decided to push the prime button as it was running and it would run smoothly. As soon as I stopped priming it would run rough as stated before then die.  I removed the gas line thinking that this might be the problem as I noticed on one end a few hairline cracks and will replace it tomorrow.  Any suggestions other suggestions?  Thanks!!

  on the bottom of the carb you have the bowl nut.  be carefull when doing this ...  remove bowl nut  clean with carb cleaner and air if possible.  if you are good with you hand go ahead and remove the bowl itself.  you will be surprised as to what is in there.  the only problem is trying to reuse the bowl gasket and getting this done without totally removeing carb.  back to what i said earlier. be carefull.  loosen the nut and pull straight down.  90% of the time the bowl will stay on carb. 

Thank you for your advise.  I actually found another forum and one of the readers suggested the following which is very similar to what you suggested:

Remove the nut holding the float bowl on. This brass nut is also the main fuel jet feeding the carburetor. Fuel will, of course, run out when you do this, so you might want to clamp off the fuel line with a pair of vice grips so only fuel in bowl runs out. Leave bowl in place. On the upper side of this nut you'll see a very small hole just below where the threads end. Take a piece of small wire, poke out this hole, and spray nut completely with carb cleaner. Replace nut, and try again. This usually is the "quick fix". A small piece of trash or a bit of varnish from fuel left in the bowl over the off-season is all it takes to cause this symptom. T-Man When I removed the nut as described above I used a staple and cleaned out the hole that goes completely through the nut and did lower the cup and every thing was very clean inside. I replace the nut and it works as good as it did the day that I purchased it.  Will start with one pull and runs smooth.  I wonder how many others have had this problem and not realized that this is an easy fix but just unclogging that hole.