Have an HSK70 7 hp engine that's been used about four years which is mounted on an everlasting and loved old Ariens chassis from 1971.
Ran great until first use this season. I'll preface this by stating that last spring I shut off the fuel line and drained the carb. It's the first year I've done so little for seasonal storage. There was about 1/4 tank of fuel. The snow blower has seen light use with only one curb cut and 20' of driveway. My estimation is maybe 16 hours of use.
This year I filled the tank, it started right up and made it about 100' from the shed to the driveway. There's where the problem began.
It stalled under load. Ran fine at idle but as soon as I engaged the drive belt and demanded something from it; stall. Setting the choke to 1/4 (the first notch) seemed to help, but the problem persisted. I tried tweaking the needle adjustment on the carb. It started at 1 5/8 turn from a gentle bottom, and seemed to run best at that position. I tried tweaking it both with the drive belt engaged and disengaged.
It idles fine but just plain stalls under a load.
What should I do?
This message was modified Dec 20, 2008 by grump
