I was splitting the load of rounds I brought home last weekend, and the Tecumseh on the mtd splitter started sounding like it was getting too much fuel, choking out while it was running. I took a look after it died and I saw fuel dripping from the carb. I'll tackle it tomorrow, hopefully it is just a stick float and not the seat. If it's the seat then I'll need to take the shroud off, then the carb. And then did it. So hopefully it's just a stuck float and I can simply take the bowl off and use some carb cleaner spray, free it and put it together again.
You should be able to pull the float/needle/seat without pulling the carb...you may have to pull the engine side up on a ramp, then lay on some cardboard to see what you are doing, but that makes it quick n easy to open the things up n get a look around. Chances are you'll not actually see much dirt or anything, it doesn't take much to make those things leak sometimes! If you can see a wear ring around the needle tip, where it mates with the seat, you'll want to get a new needle coming...not that you couldn't keep using it until the replacement arrives, but once worn they tend to cause trouble more. Hopefully the seat is removable too, but many of them on those cheap lil engines aren't. If the seat doesn't come out and it needs polished up, a q-tip with some sort of metal polishing compound on it works to get up in there.
Let me start by saying I’m not a big proponent of a lot of the snake oils on the market. I’m beyond skeptical of anything that claims to fix everything from $hits, fits to sore tits. But with that being said ( you knew there was a “but” coming), take a little time with your morning coffee to google this video and give it a look. This gal has some good product test and comparison videos.
Hopefully you can get the bowl off and still have threads but first try blowing into the inlet with a bit of low pressure air. Like gently using a bicycle pump to push some carb cleaner through.
Ok. I got it to run. It didn't look too bad, but there was some crud in the bowl. I sprayed the carb cleaner at it and it looked good. After I put the bowl back on, it didn't leak from the carb anymore. Now the spring and linkage wasn't really hooked up properly before, because one of the linkage bars was lost a while back. I just shove a piece of splitter shard in between and that sets the throttle well enough. I ran a tank of fuel through the splitter, no issues. One of these days, probably when the Tecumseh really gives me fits, I'll convert it to a horizontal shaft motor, more than likely a predator. Now I need to run a saw and shorten some more of the longer "piles" into rounds to split and haul the trailer full of wood and stack it in the shed. It was supposed to rain or snow all day tomorrow, but they are pulling that precip mostly out of the forecast. Maybe I'll get some wood work in tomorrow?
