I have a poulan 2300 cva that a friend gave to me about a year ago. He is a scrapper and found it in the trash. It was surprisingly clean. I brought it home cleaned it up and as expected no start. Checked cylinder and no scoring. Compression was 150. Got a carb kit and cleaned carb and installed. Popped first pull and fired and ran about one second on second pull. Two or three more pull had gas dribbling out muffler. Pulled plug and it was soaked wth?. Rechecked carb metering lever. Maybe I put in wrong diaphragm? Rechecked over and over and same prob. Put it back on shelf so because I was cold and to avoid me throwing out the door into traffic. Fast forward a year. I thought I have to have done something stupid so I got a new carb kit. Rechecked piston and cylinder.Looks good compression 150 after 3 pulls. Installed new fuel line, tank filter and spark plug. Good spark. Took carb apart. New filter screen, diaphragm reset metering lever etc. Re assembled. Fired first pull and died. 3 more pulls and gas out muffler again. Tried differnt diaphfagms supplied with kit. No gas out of muffler but no start either. Sigh....8 pm and frustrated. Any suggestions? I cant help but think I did something wrong. Gas spark and compression should run right?
If it is flooding you are getting too much fuel. Either the metering lever, needle isn't seating or your adjusting screws are wide open.
Make sure you have the gasket on the carb first and then the diaphragm on second. Other wise it will hold the needle open all the time.
Try to find an exploded parts diagram for that carb. Go through it in forensic detail to ensure you have the order of assembly correct. Simply having a diaphragm on the wrong side of a gasket or missing the metering lever spring can enable the failure mode you describe.
Update. Thanks for all the replies. Turns out there were two problems. One was my bonehead mistake. First was the wrong diaphragm was installed. It was in there when I took carb apart first time. Not sure if someone tried a rebuild before I got it but that would explain it being in the trash lol. So I installed the one in the kit that matched. Mistake 1 but I will man up and take responsability. The next one was my bonehead screw up. After I figured out the correct diaphragm yes I put it in backwards. Hi my name is markr and I am a bonehead lol. Now it runs and starts and idles and oils. Cut for about 15 minutes. Buried into a large oak round and the chain broke. Yup snapped one of the drivers. No other damage though. The chain was kinda rusty when I got it. Soaked in used motor oil but apparently a link was seized or something. Got a new chain ordered. Its all good. Thanks for all the replies.
Wow! you are kind of hard on yourself aren't you? If you were such a bonehead you probably would have not figured it out and got it running good
