Craftsman snow blower won't start 

I would have put the carb in the ultrasonic, I’d probably try once more. But if the carb is as cheap as you see on line, definitely a new carb. We haven’t ever had a call for a snow blower in S Fla. That’s one thing people leave behind when they move here!

Jeff short has a good suggestion..i would try that you may not have to remove the carburetor..I'm so glad i live where we don't need snow blowers ..lol.. We have enough problems with people who can't operate lawnmowers .. see you on the next one..Cheers 🍻🍻🍻🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

Wow, home garages first snowblower repair for RU-vid. I remember I asked a long time ago about snowblower repairs and you said you don’t get many. Great job. You spent a lot of time on cleaning that carburetor, I would have just bought a new one from the start. I’m from the midwest and work on snowblowers all the time so if you have any questions, feel free to reach out.

been a bit since i mentioned it but the old huskee tractor you asked for an update on once i worked on it happened. it being just about spring i finally got to start working . fixed some electrical problems and many other small things. rebuilt carb and took the tins off the engine. various other things but soon ill try to start it up!

Two days ago a friend of mine just gave me the exact same snow blower, about 2 years old. Looks like right out of the box but was sitting for a year in her garage. I drove home test it and it wouldn't start, just like the snow blower in this video. This is an excellent, well done video and I want to congratulate Home Garage for putting this together, very helpful. Today I will work on it. If it doesn't work the first time I will give it a second try. I do all the maintenance and repairs on most of my fishing (not high ends ones) reels and sometimes revisiting the problem has saved a lot of money thru the years. Thank you again for producing this very well done video.

Great video I'm a retired machinist and a watchmaker,I would have cleaned it too the first time, after hearing the way it was running after the cleaning I would have also put a new one on. Now with that being said if I needed it to do its job during a snow storm and didn't have a spare on hand (which I always do). I would have drilled the main jet hole and any side holes by hand with a pin vise and a small drill bit just a little bit bigger than the existing factory hole. I've done this on non adjustable carburetor in the past and it has worked well for me, I normally buy replacement carbs that are adjustable. Liked the video and look forward to seeing more from you.

I almost always just replaced the carburetors.. unless it's discontinued.. I live in Wisconsin and we don't have enough time to work on everything that comes in chainsaws. Blowers . mowers..trimmers etc..

That is just a plugged idle circuit, Drill it out a couple of thousands and it will run fine. I have done hundreds of these on blowers, lawn mowers, tillers, etc. Great try, but open up the idle circuit. usually on top of the carb, remove the idle screw and pop up the idle jet. If you want to send it to me I will put it in my ultra sonic cleaner and fix the idle circuit.Thanks

Oh my gosh I never seen you work on a snowblower before this is awesome

I cant imagine buying a machine, not using it much and throwing it away 7 years later over a carb job. Wish they took it to a small engine shop. My single stage is 7 years old, only gets the freshest of non ethanol fuels in December and is drained sometime in March. Had the bowl off a while back and the inside still looked brand new.

I would of bought a new carb. That one was really bad and good on you for giving it a try to clean it up.

Sooo wish we got snow in the UK 🇬🇧. We get so little.. I'm working on the Mowers already.. and they are starting to sell.. hope all is good mate

How about the jet located under the head of the idle control screw?

We have this same snow blower and it had the same issue with the same problem! Fortunately a friend that worked with engines was able to fix it.

Nice video. A pleasure to watch. I'd try to soak the carb first because I don't have an ultrasonic cleaner. If that didn't work, I'd buy one.

Given how much stuff you have to take off to get to the carburettor, iand you had cleaned the carb once, i would repace the carb for a new one, and make sure the snow blower is run out of gas when its no longer goint to be used, Tarrel had a old Toro 2 stroke snow blower, which had not been run in 8 years, but the snowblower was run untill it ran out of gas, put fresh fuel in and it started 1st pull, after 8 years .

If I already went through it and cleaned it once and it was still doing that I would just replace the carburetor, especially if I could get one for less than twenty bucks. The last time I got one from my locals lawn mower shop it was still close to 50 bucks and that was for the Chinese knockoff

There is a idle ,low speed jet under the throttle stop screw , its plastic. It can be removed bu unscrewing the throttle stop and prying it out. Give that a clean and spray carby cleaner down the passage. there is also a small hole on face of the carby air cleaner side which leads to that low speed passage that should be cleaned. If that fails then a new carby. :)

I would look for a new carb. However I would try to find OEM. I replaced the belt and paddles on my TORO two years ago. I bought the cheapest I could find. The belt was deteriorating and the paddles weren’t much better. They were a waste of time AND my snowblower didn’t work when I needed it.

Great video 👍🏻. Drained 3 year old gas out of my friends and cleaned the carb. Thing actually runs now but surges just like this one. Comment section has saved the day tho. I’ll definitely be checking that idle jet tomorrow

Hey tip of the day, try to find a cheap ultrasonic, what a godsend! Great video as always !

Good job , I would have cleaned the carburetor first like you did before buying one . I like seeing if the cleaning pays off , thanks for you trouble of educational video for all. (I'd probably be a little vigorously cleaning it again ) because I'm not one for giving up - then if it doesn't work - go with a new carburetor . 👍😁

Love the videos and really enjoy the investigation style approach to understanding what makes the different kinds of motors work.

I would thoroughly clean it the 1st time (I have high success rate on carburetor cleaning), unless the carb is totally trashed by old fuel and time.

Got a free snowblower spend the 20 bucks ! Hey Saturday you should join Micks live I think you would enjoy it !

Nice job! I bought this exact model on facebook marketplace tonight and was looking for videos on it. Mine looks almost new but won't start. I am suspecting carb but I got home with it late so I will tear into it tomorrow. My only recommendation is on carburetor cleaning. I bought a cheap ultrasonic cleaner at harbor freight a few years ago. It works great on these small engine carburetors . . . makes it a super easy job to clean them.

Great vid. Love the channel. I’d buy a new carb the first time! That thing was beat up. Design engineers should work with techs before building these things WAY too many connections before you could get to that carb. 😂

That is little snowblowers are really handy especially if you don't live in an area where you get hammered all winter. The only weak part that I found was the handle. When you would push forward and get stuck when you put a little bit of effort on the handle it would fold on itself. The first enter that I had is was the winter from hell where we were getting blizzards every other week and it even started in December that year. Sorry to keep up with that amount of snow with this little blower we were constantly going out there keeping sidewalk and walkways and our driveways clear. So we really test the limits of the machines. With a handle folding over on itself the only thing I could do at that time was to drill a second hole on each side of the handle right below that plastic wing nut. That did the trick no more folding handle. After the winter from hell was over I did a more permanent fix. I took my MIG welder and welded the top part and bottomed part of the bar together. I didn't need the option of folding the bar in half for storage so it didn't matter to me that now it's one piece. As always I enjoyed watching your video. As far as the carburetor I would always try again until it's just unreasonable to keep on messing around with it. When I do mine I have a little different method. At first it goes into the parts cleaner and gets a good scrubbing. After that I have these plastic bowl type of pan that is made for changing oil and I get those at the Dollar tree and I always pick up a couple. So I always take my carburetors apart in that pan with a blue Scott's paper towel at the bottom. The one thing I do that I don't see you doing is to use my air compressor to blow out every single hole on the carburetor and then take everything completely apart and if something's really bad I put it in my carburetor dip solution and come back to it later to finish up. I usually got a pretty good track record with this method. Most of the time when I need to buy a new carburetor it's because of something physically is broken and it's not worth trying to fix it. I look forward to watching the next video and as always I made sure to give you a thumbs up.

Save the carb by enlarging the hole in the small jet before the emulsion tube. Saves both time (waiting on new parts) and money.

To bad.you don't have a ultrasonic.cleaner you are right.it is better to get a new carb for this snow blower 👍😎

Just tried my snowblower this morning & it wouldn't start. I also tried electric start & it turn on as long as I held the button. I'm from Chicago and we just had our 1st round of little snow!!

You clearly didn’t remove and clean the pilot jet under the idle screw. That’s why it’s hunting. The carby is fine. 🇦🇺

I have a 2 cycle Toro that's a bit larger. Your machine seen overly complex with all the plastic housing and levers and knobs compared to mine, which just has a start key and a choke lever. Great video tho.

Btw I thought it was yet one more Toro sponsored video on their snow blowers on RU-vid lol

Recommending buy ultrasonic cleaner. I see lot of carbs that look clean but engine still need choke or continous priming to run , but after "ultrasonic bath" they work perfectly. And most of very dirty carbs like this works too after long hot "ultrasonic bath"

Good day Boy this video should come in handy, I just found one like this. Thanks happy new yr.

I know you cleaned the main jet, but I didn't see you clean the pilot/ idle jet. That's why it won't run without choke. Completely remove the idle screw and you'll notice a black plastic cap. Pull it up and that's your pilot jet. Edit: Taryl demonstrates this in his surging video: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-iuCU243O6yM.html Now there's yer dinner!

I noticed that the float wasn’t parallel, so it probably needs a needle and seat. As many carbs as you clean, I would recommend for you to break down and buy an ultrasonic cleaner. I bought mine at HF pre-Covid for about $70. I use a mix of water and Purple Power which is available at Wally World for around $4 / gallon. I have had it remove paint.

I would definitely replace the carb, and initially, when it looked so bad, I would have replaced it immediately. This was extra interesting to me. My backup unit is a 2002 MTD single stage, with a Tecumseh 4 cycle 5 HP engine. An awful lot of the details of the machine, excluding the engine, looked like they were made from the same stampings as my 2002 model - the shape of the side panels, the attachment points for the top plastic cover, the shape of the handle and the augur, etc. I would say that's a good thing, since there are more likely to be spare parts available when it covers a lot of years of production. 2 things I would do when the engine is exposed (way more involved on this one than on my 2002 model) - run it and adjust the carb mixture, if the mixture screw would be hard to get to when the covers are on, and remove & lube the starter motor. On mine, I have had to remove it a few times over the years, when the engagement gear would not ride up the shaft and catch the flywheel teeth. You would hate to have put the covers back on and then try the electric starter, and just hear the motor spin, because the gear did not shoot up to catch the flywheel teeth. This was a well presented video.

Nice video

I'd probably let it run a while choked and see how it did before I took the carb back off again. If it still wouldn't straighten out after the 2nd time I'd order one. The opposed twin Vanguard on my Craftsman had a lean jetted carb and the starting instructions were to start it wide open and keep it running with the choke and continue running it after it got warmed up that way. NOPE! I ordered an adjustable jetted carb off Ebay just so I can start it on idle. It was off a marine application but works just fine. No hard starts for me. Too many diesels in my life for that. Thanks and Blessings!

I would buy myself am ultrasonic cleaner to Clean the carburetor if I find myself repairing a lot of them which are like that !

I would try a torch tip file to clean the main jet, maybe make it a tad bit bigger. At least that's my plan on the one I'm working on.

My grandma has the exact same one in fact I have the same of everything pretty much LOL 🤣

When carbies get gummed up with varnish from stale fuel, they are a pain to clean. I usually replace the carby.

Good job, try a new carburetor if its some one snow blower , we can make ours work somehow,

I'd do exactly what you did because I don't have an ultrasonic cleaner. Also as someone else mentioned, did you clean the idle jet and passage? Thanks, great vid as always!

These machines were built by MTD, they were also sold under the Yardmachines brand with a slightly different plastic cover. Very irritating design to get the carb off the machine with all that plastic in the way. Regardless a very good and well made machine for what it is. They also made 2 Cycle models. The engines are Honda clones which use that same huayi carburetor that is very prone to idle circuit blockage. EVERY single machine like this that I come across has had that exact same surging issue. I did not see you clean the idle jet or spray carb cleaner through the idle circuit in the video, so that is surely why it would not idle correctly. If The ultrasonic cleaner is the only way to bring the carb back if a manual cleaning fails. If after a good blast in the ultrasonic cleaner does not bring back the idle circuit, you can drill out the idle jet slightly using a micro drill set. Do not buy the cheap aftermarket carbs especially to replace these huayi/ruixing carburetors. The already poor design with weak idle circuit is even worse in the aftermarket carb, some times they do not even work brand new out of the box.

I’d fill it full of sea foam and let it sit for a few days after a good run in, before buying a new carb

I’ve had my snowblower surging like that after accidentally leaving ethanol fuel in it over the summer and requiring lots of carb cleaner to start. It honestly just resolved it self after running for a while. Sometimes you are in a rush and just need to move snow… Gasoline is a solvent I suppose.

New carb would be my next move..

Only taking in consideration the technical part of the repair I would buy a new carburetor. Now would I personally consider a blower of that size (to small and no gearbox) And furthermore trying to repair it? No I would not! The reason for that is my location (Northern Sweden) we get a lot of snow usually over a meter of snow and that tiny blower could not even make it's way out of the garage.

Buy a new one your videos are great as usual

Hate those engines have to take so much apart just to get to the carb

Here's a idea. to clean the emulsion tube holes, (and not everyone will have this just lying around) the small holes you can use guitar strings. I also use guitar strings to clean out my sprayers on my water mister.

Should I put stabilizer in my snowblower till next winter or drain the gas? Great video! Subbed. 👍

New carb sounds like a plan! An ultrasonic cleaner probably would have solved the problem in less time.

Oh yeah- tip #2: an ultrasonic cleaner will make easy work of a crusty carburetor like that.

No if the carbrator thats on it would b best to just replace it with a new 1

I hate fixing snowblowers because of this reason you have to take apart the whole thing

An ultrasonic cleaner would have made easy work on that carb

Like you said buy another carburetor

Snow blowers are a pain to start after 9 months of sitting I have a bigger craftsman snowblower and it smokes and is really annoying to start in the winter

Next we will roll the unit off a ten story building into a industrial dumpster.

Buy replacement, rather spend $20 than an hour or two working on it.

Man that was one nasty carb. I wouldn't of cleaned it the first time as dirty as it was I would of just replaced it I normally find when they are that bad you have to end up replacing them to get the engine to run right

I have a 123cc craftsman that appears to have no linkage attached to choke fins. When moving choke lever, there appears to be no linkage moving. Is there linkage that may have disconnected? Thanks, rg

Carb kleen is to be used for emergencys only

Try and larging the main jet or use your micro drill enlarge the whole

How do you get a locking bolt and bell washer off from wheel on Craftsman 22" snowthrower? Have used penatrating oil and bolt still won't release.

What would you recommend on a craftsman leaf blower that has compression spark an you squirt carb cleaner in the spark plug hole an still won't start?

Awesome... Can you run the machine with the choke in the middle if the blower does not run correct when fully open?

Considering how the carb looked when you took off the bowl, I would have just bought a new one right then and there. Ethanol corrosion is nasty stuff, that carb is most likely shot or at least uneconomical to repair.

You didn’t clean the top jet. That why it hunts and surges. I’d just replace the carb it’s easier. Maybe $20.00 on Amazon.

That would have been new carb time as soon as i saw the float bowl.

First cool keep up the good work 👍☺️

You should invest in an ultrasonic cleaner

When i come across a carb that bad i don't even bother trying to clean it i just replace it.

My toro 621e does the same sometime. I lose the gas cap and it work good. Don’t know why.

Did you clean the idlr jet? (The black screw on top}.

hey, why is it that every single honda clone out there uses 10mm bolts and not any other size?

still got that snowblower??? i could use a nice one

Hi! Is it a float solution?

that carb is a nightmare to clean.

buy the new carb,save the hassle.

I would just buy a new Carburator

replace the carburetor first thing do not clean it

Buy another carb my friend

buy a new one. Its not worth the hassle to continue to clean.

Buy a new carb and done

Buy a new carb

Buy a carb!

It’s. Never buy a craftsman. They are crap.