Snowblower stalled, then won't start at all

[Red Squirrel]

Last year when I last started my snowblower, it ran for a minute or so and stalled while I was taking it out of the garage. Never was able to start again and since it was middle of winter and I don't have a heated garage it was just too cold to work on it. We ended up not getting much snow after that and I just dealt with it. I of course procrastinated all summer and I'm only getting around to looking at it now when it's back to being cold, but at least not super cold.

I suspect a fuel delivery issue or maybe spark plug. But curious to get more ideas for anyone here more experienced than me with fixing this sort of thing. So today I took the carb apart to look inside to see if it was gunked up but it looks very clean. Question though, when I prime the fuel with the carb open, should I be able to see fuel going into the carb? It was dry in there. No fuel came out when I took the cover off either, should there be fuel in there? Or does it stay inside the small cylinder chamber next to it (choke I think) and only get sucked in by the engine?

Also, when I do try to start it, there is what appears to be fuel being spat out of the exhaust. Looks more like oil but guessing it's fuel and is just dirty. I don't do this for too long because it's quite messy, so not sure if this is just residual fuel from when it stalled, or if more is actually being delivered during this attempt and it's just never igniting so it just goes out the exhaust. But if more is in fact being delivered then this indicates it might be a spark plug issue right?

Either way, tomorrow I will go to the hardware store and get a spark plug removal socket and a new spark plug and try that. I'm open to other suggestions of stuff to try though.

 

[Torn Mind]

Shoot starter fluid into the air intake and let 'er rip; if the machine turns, you're in luck and can eliminate spark, head gasket, valves, and other more difficult repairs from the matter and focus on gas and the carb. The general direction is to take off the air filter, which filters air immediately before the air is taken into the mixing chamber. With the air filter off, you give a squirt of starting fluid or similarly flammable liquid like brake fluid into air chamber. The reason you use a different, fresh fluid is that really bad gas will not let anything burn because of all of the water present in the gas.

Since you imply there is a priming button, is this an old fashioned Briggs with the square-pentagon air filter? Yes, you should see the gas being coming up from the tank and being fired into the combustion chamber. The gasket between the tank and carb itself can fail.

Liquid coming out of the exhaust means that the chamber hasn't burned anything and you likely primed it way too many times. If oil is entering the combustion chamber, you will see a blue smoke during normal operation, and your lungs and nose will let you know it.

 

[mindless1]

You don't really need a special spark plug socket on a small equipment engine where it isn't recessed so you don't need the rubber bung in it to hold onto the spark plug while you extract it, just the right sized deep well socket. At the same time, spark plug socket(s) are worth owning, but I wouldn't make a special trip to get one just yet if you have a deep well socket that fits.

You can take the plug out, examine it for residue, wear, bend ground electrode, etc. You can hold it against the engine to ground and see if it makes spark while a helper turns it over (or with electric starter).

If it makes spark (or really anyway), you probably have a clogged carb, or could have a primer bulb or hose leak issue, OR something I came across myself on my snow blower was that the carb bolts worked loose, and at the time I realize that and tightened them but if I hadn't, I could have taken carb off, seen nothing wrong and put back on, but then I would have tightened them enough.

Mine has the primer bulb but it's not B&S, Zongshen SN210 on a Cub Cadet.

I disagree with Torn Mind about old gas, it's not so much that it has absorbed to much water (there is an upper limit to that due to limited amount of ethanol in it) but rather the most volatile components of the gas evaportate out and leave sludge aka varnish behind causing clogs, so the less optimal fuel is poorly vaporized, and less of it. When it gets that bad, the fuel usually starts to smell horrible.... as if gas ever smelled good, but it smells rotten, distinct change in the odor.

Anyway, if it were me I'd go ahead and order a generic replacement carb. Even if you don't need it now, you will eventually and for most engines they're only around $16. Even better a kit that comes with a primer bulb, tubing, and misc other related parts to have when you need them... might run $5 more for $30 worth of parts if purchased separately and some even come with a spark plug or two. Granted generic plug but , I wouldn't change the spark plug unless it looks bad, worn or damaged not just dirty and can be cleaned off. If you're pumping a lot of unburnt fuel through the engine, they might even be self-cleaning themselves through all this.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Forgot to mention, it's an Ariens 24 compact, bought a few years ago. I think the engine is actually made by Ariens but now that you mention I'll have to double check... maybe it is B&S. Will play with it more tomorrow once I get a new spark plug, figure it's worth trying that before I get in deeper. I don't have a deep enough socket to get it out so while I'm at the store to buy that I may as well get a spark plug too.

And yeah once I get the spark plug out I should be able to test it to see if it makes a spark.

 

[mindless1]

Ariens doesn't make engines, so I'd guess in that size maybe B&S, Zongshen, or LCT and you can most likely look at pics from each for their snow engines to see which it is (probably didn't change much visually in recent years), if Ariens doesn't include an engine part # or separate PDF for engine, or there is bound to be an engine serial and/or model # on it somewhere, maybe near the base of the engine, though maybe not as easy to see on a snowblower.

I'd start with LCT since they do supply at least some of their engines.

Consumer - Article · Customer Self-Service

 

[Torn Mind]

Forgot to mention, it's an Ariens 24 compact, bought a few years ago. I think the engine is actually made by Ariens but now that you mention I'll have to double check... maybe it is B&S. Will play with it more tomorrow once I get a new spark plug, figure it's worth trying that before I get in deeper. I don't have a deep enough socket to get it out so while I'm at the store to buy that I may as well get a spark plug too.

And yeah once I get the spark plug out I should be able to test it to see if it makes a spark.

Looks like your blower uses the "Bowl and float" tech that is pretty much ubiquitous these days, in part in to meet emissions standards. Tecumseh is dead now, but they used to make bowl and float small engines.

Looks like you have to take off a bit to get access to the air filter and carb. I'm not sure if your particular blower has manual choke control or if it is automatic. You want to shoot the WD-40/starting fluid/flammable aerosol into that carb and if possible, close the choke after spraying the liquid in there. Then give it a pull.
Spraying into the spark plug hole directly is also an option, but riskier than spraying into the carb first.

Also, given the orientation of the muffler being on the very top of the engine, the liquid coming out of the exhaust is a concern, maybe something blew through lack of maintenance like oil changes.

 

[Red Squirrel]

So new spark plug did the trick! At first it was not working but guess using crocodile clips to short the connectors where the key switch goes was not enough, I decided to try to partially reassemble it so I can get the key switch connected, and it ran then. I got it outside the garage to let it run a bit, I'm sure neighbours loved me for doing that at this time lol but I was able to stop it, reassemble it fully then run it again with pull start no problem. The real test will be during the day so I can try to do the whole driveway.

Glad I got it going since If I wanted to disassemble it any further I'd need to remove way more stuff to get further. I'm really not well setup to work on this sort of stuff yet, but that's one of my ongoing projects, is finishing my garage and turning it into a shop, and having all my tools there and all organized, not all over the place like they're now.

 

[mindless1]

^ Tool cart with chest on top, very nice to be able to roll over to the work if you don't go overkill on a manageable size to do that.

 

[Red Squirrel]

So still won't start right so I'll definitely need to get in there deeper, but it's so cold now to work in the garage. I was able to use starting spray to get it going though. The part that I thought was the carb is not actually that, so shows how much I know... if it fails again I will open the ACTUAL carb and then see if it needs cleaning. Need to take way more stuff apart to get to it properly though.

 

[mindless1]

I'd go ahead and order a generic replacement carb. Even if you don't need it now, you will eventually and for most engines they're only around $16. Even better a kit that comes with a primer bulb, tubing, and misc other related parts to have when you need them... might run $5 more for $30 worth of parts if purchased separately and some even come with a spark plug or two.

The carb on mine was way more work than it needed to be to get off, various bolts, snow blower metal cover, engine plastic cover that mounts fuel line and primer and throttle/etc, basically a jigsaw puzzle but went much faster by first watching a youtube video of someone else doing it.

Winter garage work, I have an oscillating electric heater. It doesn't just make it more comfortable but also old plastics, rubbers, including hoses, are less brittle, more flexible to finesse a disassembly if not cold.

Granted, taking the carb off, if you spill gas, you might want to air out the garage and come back later once the door is shut again, especially if the gas went bad and stinks, and be mindful of whether your choice of heater is safe around gas fumes.

I'd just leave my heater off when starting the carb pull and until the garage was aired out since it's such a simple thing to shut it off for a few minutes, even though it's a fan forced ceramic type heater so the elements don't get hot enough to ignite gas fumes. It just doesn't make sense to have it on when the door is open to air out the garage, though having it on fan-only mode would blow the stink away faster.

 

[Torn Mind]

How did the spark plug look when removed, Red Squirrel?

 

[Red Squirrel]

How did the spark plug look when removed, Red Squirrel?

It was pretty black. Though not sure if that's just from my many failed attempts at starting it, since I was basically getting bad combustion.

And yeah was careful when dealing with fuel, the heater I'm using now is an electric infrared one, so it's basically like a lamp, but instead of light, it "projects" heat and can be put far enough. Was using a propane heater at one point but it felt sketchy as hell since I had to put it very close to feel the heat as most of it just went straight up. And it shot the occasional flame which is not good if dealing with gas fumes. So yeah not using that one anymore.

If I can keep getting it going with starting fluid I will do that for now, but I really do need to expedite my garage project. I at least want to get it to a point where it's insulated and sealed up, so I can run a heater and retain the heat then I can get a bit further in to dianose it further, and also do an oil change, which is most likely overdue.

Very worse case scenario maybe there is oil leaking into the engine due to a failure, but I don't think so as oil level appears to be normal when I check it. Once the snowblower runs, it runs fine.

I really suspect it's a fuel delivery issue or more specifically priming issue. The prime bulb never feels firm when I prime it so it feels like it's not actually priming properly, but once it gets going then it gets enough fuel. Is it normal to hear a bit of air when priming? I almost feel there is a leak somewhere. So instead of sucking fuel it's sucking air. Hard to get to any of those parts though without taking more stuff apart, so I will need to do that at some point.

 

[mindless1]

Oh, for some reason I thought it wouldn't run, not just wouldn't start without the starter fluid but would continue to run once started. I must have assumed you meant that it only ran till it ran out of starter fluid due to stopping spraying it in.

Yes I'd look at the primer bulb and line to it. Really I mean, I'd just get one of those carb kits with these extra bits thrown in as mentioned previously, so you have them when tearing it apart.

Primer bulbs usually feel different if making good pressure, there's more resistance to its movement though I find that more noticeable on smaller engines than on the snow blower.

I don't recall hearing air when priming mine, but maybe slightly hearing a fuel swish sound. It's not loud enough to be very noticeable.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Originally it wouldn't run but got it going when I changed the spark plug, though it failed to start again after that. So it's still not quite fixed.