Snow blower mechanic

[Eck]

Couple of years ago I bought a snow blower used. It has run fairly well without much of any service needed to it. Well about a week ago when we got a few inches in the middle of the week, I tried to start it up and it wouldn't crank. This morning I chased the issue down to a rotted fuel supply line to the carb. I got it running for about an hour to get through half of my driveway and now it won't stay running. I am thinking it probably just needs a good overhaul so I am looking for any suggestions on a good place to take it (preferably in the Wheat Ridge/Lakewood/Arvada area-- but I am willing to drive a little bit for a job done right.) I took my lawnmower and a blower to S & N Lawnmower in Arvada and although they both "run" I wasn't very impressed with the work given the money it cost.

Thanks!
Mike

[Digger]

90% of the time varnish from old fuel has gummed up the small passages and jets in the carb. Mikuni carbs seems to suffer worse than say a Briggs carb.

You can fix this yourself. Most of the time I take the carb apart, being careful to keep the seals intact, then thoroughly spray out every orifice with carb cleaner to remove varnish. Only on one occasion this did not work for me. I bought a 1 gallon pail of carb dip from Walmart, O'reilly's etc. and take the carb apart and dropped it in the dip per the instructions. Ran like new again.

Total cost to fix about $10 and an hour of my time.

[Eck]

Long shot but I removed the carb and now the throttle assembly is giving me fits. I can't for the life of me figure out how the spring connects to the assembly and all goes back together. One rod on the carb and one rod on the lever that both connect to the bracket. There are multiple holes on both the lever and carb connecting pieces. I also can't seem to figure out how the spring reconnects (in the picture, it seemed there was only one hole smaller than the others for the smaller spring wire). I'm assuming this is correct.

Like I said long shot to see if anyone knows what I'm dealing with, but thought I'd throw it out there.

[Eck]

[Digger]

Based on your pictures, I'm guessing you have an MTD snowblower with a Tecumseh snowblower engine. (Briggs and Tecumseh both make snowblower specific engines)

I did some Google searching and came up with a video that I think will get you rolling again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDe-VH4X5EA

With almost all small engines there is a throttle lever that pulls on the governor arm via a spring or spring mechanism. The governor arm then connects to the carb's butterfly valve. The faster the engine turns, the more the governor tries to close the butterfly valve. The throttle lever adds tension to the spring to fight the governor arm and force the butterfly open more, thus increasing speed.

[Eck]

Thank you Digger and thank you Internet! That is exactly what I needed.

I'm also both impressed and leery as to how you identified the exact type of snow blower and engine make by mere closeups of a couple parts. Well done sir!

[Jesus_man]

Throw some Stabil in the fuel before storage. That may help you avoid this in the future.