Inherited MTD Horizontal/Vertical hydro splitter

Agreed! The man, the myth, the legend walt makes a super fine splitting setup.

 

Don't make the tank hold more than enough fuel for however long you want to work without a break. Fuel storage issues are why you're into the carb in the first place. Refueling every 4 hours is no big deal.

Those carbs are really, really, simple internally. Clean up the mess as best you can, pull the main jet/needle, pull the idle jet/needle.

Clean both of them out, inject cleaner in one end of the idle passage and check the flow through the idle transition ports. (look like three tiny holes in a triangle pattern near the throttle blade in closed position.)

This is essential as it usually gets carb cleaner in your eye which is critical to ensuring you are angry enough to intimidate this carb into submission.

If you don't get good flow, you'll have to remove the plugs that allow access. Verify you left plenty of chisel marks to warn the next guy that you were here already.

It doesn't hurt to check the bowl vent (hole in the throat, near choke valve, vents directly into bowl) and make sure that's clear too.

Check the float for liquid inside by shaking it near your ear. Make sure you smack your knuckles on a shelf, work bench, broom rack, etc. as the sting from the carb cleaner is probably wearing off at this point.

Flood the rubber seat for the needle valve with carb cleaner, as this will soften it and cause it to swell, ruining it for further use. Then use about 300psi of compressed air to launch the seat into Low Earth Orbit. Bonus points if you don't have a new seat to install.

You shouldn't reuse this part anyways but..... Of course you could leave it alone or remove it in a civilized manner with a small crochet-hook type tool, but that's absolutely above this engine's pay grade.

When reassembling the float and needle valve, check the float level with the carb turned upside down and a 3/16" drill bit as your gauge.

If it's off, feel free to "break-in" the new seat by forcing the float closer to the carb body and re-checking. That probably didn't help so for Plan B, use a small screw-driver to bend/pry the tang contacting the needle valve.

Once the carb is back together and "clean enough", get it back on the engine, only to realize that the throttle shaft and it's bores are hopelessly waller'd out, and it's never going to adjust/run well.

Replace the engine with a Predator or other Honda GX200 clone (preferably of Taiwanese origin), converting the whole shebang to a horizontal crank setup and a recoil that won't give up with little to no warning because the engine will actually start reliably thanks to having nothing to do with these penny-engineered carbs.

Oh yeah, if there's a primer on the carb, it's likely bad (stiff/cracked/leaking), and due to the aforementioned penny-engineering, there's no choke, so that makes the engine hard to start (along with probable fuel quality issues), which is why the recoil was jacked up in the first place.

In all seriousness, I would invest as little time and money into this engine as possible. They were engineered to be cheap, first and foremost. Reliability and longevity came in at a distant second/third. If you can get it running at all, to evaluate general condition, great. But you should take any excuse to re-power.

If you decide to go ahead with rebuilding the carb - get the kit, get a bowl (preferrably from a snowblower application and one that has the bowl drain), and get the primer bulb. Taken care of, it should last another 15 years.

 

A few times....

In my hay day, I could have the carb off a SnowKing powered snowblower, completely rebuilt (plugs out, clean, replace all needles/jets, replace plugs, new primer line), back on the machine and running 100% inside of 20 minutes. We got a half-hour to R&R the carb, and a half-hour to rebuild.

Check the throttle shaft play before you do ANYTHING to these carbs. A carburetor replacement and replacing the recoil assembly (was $35-40 back in the day) was enough to warrant looking at a new mower/engine for these little vertical shaft engines. Running proper, they will put in the work. But they go downhill from neglect quick and repairing them becomes a question of what's easier and more time-efficient vs what costs less. For unit that is destined for some re-engineering anyways, I'd go for the re-power and use the Tecumseh for a wheel chock on the new splitter trailer.