went out to clear my driveway and the 2 neighbor"s driveways of 2" of fresh fallen snow and about 5 minutes of running my 1986 ariens 924 the chute gear was sticky so i idled it down by the garage and went in for the oil squirt can.i started squirting whatever was bound a little from the last time i used the machine and all of a sudden it popped a couple of times and died. it has been not wanting to start by the rewind rope for the first time in 25 yrs this year so i wheeled it over to the 110 volt cord and tried to start it. not even a pop! now what? i have 3/4 of my driveway and 2 others to do(about 200 ft total) and the snowblower won't work! went and got the plug wrench and pulled the spark plug thinking it was the ignition went bad.got the plug out and fired off the starter and i had spark! next i'm thinking i have a high speed jet fouled with crude.i really didn't think that was the cause because i'm a carb man,been one all my life mikuni,rochesters,holleys,lawnmower,snowblower,weedwacker,chainsaw, and everything in between.i've had the carb off this machine and went thru it a few times thru the years and i've allways kept that part of it in tip top shape.well i go to shut the fuel off so i can pull the bowl and high speed jet and needle and the gas was all ready shut off. seems i did not open the shut off valve till it bound the stem in the fully open position and while running it slowly vibrated in to the off position, thus starving my ariens of gas and causing it to quit for the first time since i bought it new! now you know why i call this the easiest fix i ever had!
This message was modified Jan 22, 2011 by mkd55
