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

Hey folks,

Found this forum today and spent some time reading through a bunch of posts.  Great info!!  I'm hoping some of you could lend me some advice. 

My blower this season has started having issues where after its running, it would just stall out.  It started last season after using it for 30 min or so, and now it happens right after I start her up.  She has no problems starting on choke now.  I did just rebuild the carb and cleaned everything out, including all jets.  I did drain her of old gas and she has new gas too...  So the issue is after running on choke and moving the throttle lever to High position, it may stay running for a couple min, but as soon as I engage the auger or trans, it stalls out.  Even stalls w/o moving auger or trans.   I checked the gas cap too and loosed it, but don't think that's the issue either.  It seemed if I wiggled the clutch wire when it was dying out, it would help for a second or two, but it would still die out.

Of course this happened right before we were slammed w/ over a foot of snow this past weekend.  First time I had to "shovel" the driveway in 20 years. 

P.S. - This blower was purchased in the mid 1980 when I was in high school.  Usually it runs awesome...  Can't imagine what's going on but cringe to think of taking it to the dealer where I'm sure the bill will be over $200 whatever it is...

Thanks in advance for anyone's advice!!

Rov

Video Links of Problem:

http://youtu.be/ZpRrpnuzHJo

http://youtu.be/L77v5fLM4vo

I'm going with main nozzle and main jet not properly cleaned.  Time to pull out the trash bag tie, strip it and use the wire to clean every hole, gallery and jet you can put it in.  When that's done, and you have unrestricted flow to the carb, it should run fine.  One other thing to keep in mind is the fairly common problem of the fuel cap air vent clogging.  When that happens, air cannot displace fuel in the tank and a vacuum builds up in the tank, thus restricting fuel flow.

Just thinking but don't know this carb. Is there a right and wrong way to install the carb bowl thereby limiting the movement of the float and is the float tang bent restricting the needle limiting the proper gas flow. From the diagram it looks like the bowl is not an issue.

Great pic from service manual.  One thing I definately didn't do was clean the Pilot Jet properly.  I'll remove that and reclean. 

I did drain out the gas and refilled w/ new gas.  The bowl and gas "filter" was really clean and didn't have any residue or dirt in either.

I'll also clean out the main jet and run wire through each of those little holes...  I just spayed carb cleaner before and used compressed air.

I'm hoping its the pilot jet as I didn't adjust the screw or pull it out...

I did leave the gas top unscrewed just in case it wasn't getting any air.  Had that problem once before on my RedMax leaf blower so check it out before.

Thanks again for everyone's tips and feedback.  I'll be sure to update when I get this nipped.  Hopefully by not going to the stealer...

Rov

OK.  Didn't realize that Pilot Jet just pry's out... when I popped it out, looks like the O ring is not 100% even... slightly flat on one side.  Also didn't get any kind of thin wire from the bottom up through the middle...  I'll give that a shot again.  I turned the pilot screw in and out but didn't notice much diff when I had her running on choke.  The engine was surging bad for about a min or two and then eventually died out.  When I check around the carb, I noticed the seals in the front and the back of the carb were wet w/ fuel.  Thinking she's leaking and not air tight.  So not sure if I should just replace the whole thing for $60 or so or just get a couple gaskets first and try again.  That leaky seal must be causing surging, no??

Clean the main jet and the Nozzel... That should be all you need to do....  the pilot jet only runs the engine at idle or low throttle settings (or no load normal speed)...  The main jet feeds the pilot,  if the pilot is clogged it will surge, or die at low speeds but sound good under load when the main jet takes over at open throttle settings...

The best way to clean that those is to take them out..    

Good Luck,

Friiy

MN_Runner wrote:
Thanks MN_Runner.  Order new complete carb and gaskets yesterday.  Total about $60.  Let's hope this does the trick!  - Rov

Rover wrote:

Hi Chef Rover,

Good luck with the fix. Hopefully the new carb will take care of it.  One other culprit would be an issue with the ignition (see part #5 on http://www.boats.net/parts/search/Honda/Snow%20Blower/0/HS624K1%20TA-A%20SNOW%20BLOWER%2C%20JPN/FLYWHEEL%20%2B%20IGNITION%20COIL/parts.html).  How old is your sparkplug?  Just make sure you don't have a cracked sparkplug.  Check if your ignition coil is electrically good (check with a Fluke) and has a good connection.  In your video, looks like your engine stops running when it is getting warmed up.  The problem is either no fuel (carb) or no fire (ignition).  Please let us know. 

That engine has a filter in the bottom of the fuel tank and it may be clogged.  Take the fuel line off of the carb and see if there is a good steady stream of fuel flowing out of the hose.  If not follow the hose back to the tank for either inline filter or remove the tank and pull the filter out of the bottom of the tank and clean or replace as needed.

Carl