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

I have an older 8 hp Ariens with electirc start. It had a bad fuel line leak, needed a tune up and oil change when I bought it used at a flea market for $175.

I changed the oil and spark plug, and had a small engine shop replace tubes in tires, new bosch plug, and adjust carb and replace fuel line and add fuel filter (as it had no filter).

It ran great both of the last 2 times I used it this winter .  I put it back in the garage 2 weeks ago and haven't brought it out till today.. Today we got 1/2 a ft of snow and I tried my best to start it any way I could. Electrically and with the pull start. I then resorted to  reading the adjustment manual. I removed the carb cover, seated both idle and main jet adjusters, and backed both out 1.25 turns. Choke on, partly on, off. Doesn't matter. I spent 2 hrs out there trying to get that sucker to run, but no avail. I removed the spark plug and sanded it clean, tried a tighter gap, a looser gap. Nothing.

Any ideas before I drop it off at the small engine shop?

If your pulling and pulling or using the electric start a lot make frequent checks for the plug being wet.  It should be wet with lots of start attempts so useless to keep trying until it dries out. 

If the plug is dry after lots of start attempts dump some gas directly into the pulg hole to fire up,  If you have spark then you'll have gas, air and should be compression so a start.

If you can get it going you can try pushing the primer to keep it going.  Sometimes it works and just another verification that the carb needs cleaning.

There are a number of gas/carb possibilities for your problem mentioned above and spark worth checking also.   If  you have spark and cleaned the carb then it could be a sheared flywheel key.   

Ke http://www.kedawei.com/snowblower.htm