Brandon McCombs wrote:


I took apart the float bowl of my lawnmower. The needle-size hole in the
bolt keeping the float bowl together was crusted up so I ran a paper
clip through it to clean it. It is wide open now. I also ran the paper
clip up into the main jet but it was clean. I put everything back
together but the mower still stalls unless continuously primed. Could
the float be screwed up and need replacing? How to tell if the float is
okay? What else could be causing the mower to stall? Should I get a new
spark plug?

thanks
Brandon

You're on the right track, you just didn't get it clean enough. There
are usually a series of small holes along the sides of the pickup tube
that also need to be cleaned out. Jamming a paper clip through the jets
is not really the thing to do. Get a can of carb cleaner (2+2 is a good
brand if you can find it) put the jets and/or pickup tube in a small
glass baby food jar and spray in a generous amount of carb cleaner and
let them soak for at least a few hours maybe even overnight. Also spray
the cleaner through all the orifices in the carb body and _blow_ _out_
_with_ _compressed_ _air_. If you can soak the entire carb body that is
even better. If you must push something through the jets to get the gunk
out use a piece of small copper wire. At least the copper is soft enough
to not damage the brass holes like a steel paper clip will.

When you reassemble it make sure everything is spotless, and clean
enough to eat off of. The smallest piece of trash in a carb will greatly
affect the running of the engine.

A float needs to float in the bowl to close the inlet valve. If it sinks
it will leak fuel everywhere.

By all means put a new spark plug in it. That is not your problem but
they are too cheap to not start out with a new one.

--
Art