Had a problem with my two tear old lawn mower where it wouldn't stay running. I was just mowing the lawn and it abruptly stopped. There was plenty of gas in it and everything else looked OK, I just couldn't figure out why it stopped.
After checking the spark plug and oil, all of the easy stuff, I took the air cleaner off to look inside of the carburetor, in the carburetor throat there was a coating of black dust that didn't look like it was supposed to be there. I would have thought that the air cleaner would have stopped the dust from getting through, but instead there it was. I checked the air cleaner itself closely and found an area where the air was getting by the filter and right into the engine.
I decided then to take the carburetor off and clean the dirt out of it. I flushed it out with carburetor cleaner until everything that I could see inside came clean and free of dirt. Then I checked the float and fuel feed to make sure the engine had adequate flow of fuel, which it did. I then re-assembled the carburetor and tried to start the engine. After a couple of pulls it started right up and ran great while I finished the lawn.
Afterwards I went to the lawn mower shop and got a new air cleaner to replace the old damaged one.
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Bob Crane is the author of http://www.americanwrenches.com - a site that helps many find tools they need for their projects.
