Briggs & Stratton Carbs

[Slacker]

Anyone have much experience with those cheapo B&G carbs on std push motors? I have two older mowers down cause the carbs are shot. My latest Sears mower is about to go hoots up. The thing dies at any point while mowing. I have to prime the thing, then it waivers, running up and down in rpms. When it starts speeding up and running smooth, it's getting ready to die out. I pump the primer, then it runs for a few minutes again. I got an over gskt kit. I did this with the other two mowers. It helped one for a while but not the other. I did find out, if ya use too much Sea Foam and do not run it through, completely out, that red rubber button melts.

Like I said, I have my 3rd mower going down. The motors are fine. Can I do anything to the carbs or are they just disposable? If I recall right, the carbs are close to a hundred a pop. If so, I can get a mower at the end of the season for that.

Am going out shortly to start working of the Sears mower carb. Will see how the kit works on it. I'm not holding my breath, for sure.

 

[Lew L]

Gas tank vent in the gas cap has been known to close up. Worth a quick look.
Lew

 

[sarchin]

I had to replace the fuel lines in my weed trimmer and chainsaw this year. The lines were hardening up and breaking apart.

 

[KJShover]

I've always enjoyed long usage out of my lawn equipment. I think thats due to the way its stored off-season. But, when it gets to the end of thier life or I forget to store them properly, I've had to mess with the carbs. I just got a rebuild kit, fresh lines and filter, then cleaned and rebuild them.

These folks have good prices.
http://www.willardssmallengines.com...s-stratton-carburetor-rebuild-kits/page1.html :clapping:

And just in case, some videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTsBcTQZt6s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uap0c828ycc&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oq2CkwFyi2k&feature=related

 

[06VMAXIMUS]

Like Lew said, check the tank cap vent. And keep the sea foam out of it. Sea foam has a tendency to dissolve crap and knock it loose, which is great but can clog up the tiny jets on small carbs. Not to mention dissolving the primer bulbs....which you have already discovered. I would dump the fuel, clean the carb good with some Gumout and replace the primer.

 

[88vmx12]

depending on how new the mower is. I used to work on mowers years ago and have not been impressed by their plastic crap in the carbs or even the whole carb being made out of plastic. I am guessing the plastic ones are throw aways. Where the all metal ones like in the video are in my opinion the good ones. They are very very basic carbs and easy to set the float , air fuel mixture etc. Now the plastic one I am not sure about the parts for them. as for the metal carbs the parts should still be available.

G

 

[Slacker]

Thanks much for the inputs. I didn't get get to the mower carb yesterday. Momma decided it was due to clean the hard water deposits out of the dishwasher. Had to go get some CLR. Took the long way aroud to get it on the grocery getter, Mr. Max.:biglaugh:
Yeah, I wonder about those cheeze ball, plastic carbs. This carb on the Craftsman mower didn't get any Sea Foam, if I recall correctly. It started screwing up shortly after I got it. Should of taken it back then. Just was a busy summer for me to do it that year. My fault there. I do use Marvel Mystery Oil, off n on, to loosen up the carbon n it does help the compression some.
I hope to get to the carb after church but Ma may want to go to the fair again. All I go for is to look for money on the ground. Our best find was over 20 bucks at one time. Our worst, 11 cents. One advantage of living next to a convenience store is finding money. The kids or I have found 1- 45 bucks at a time. I was leaving my drive on my '89 four years ago, looked down to see a 20 dollar bill. After I picked it up, I discovered it was 45 bucks smackers all together. Found a couple 20's at different times, too. I can work to make money, but I really get excited when I find it.
Again, thanks for the info. I will check that cap first.

 

[Slacker]

I'm the happy Lawnmower Man again.
Ma ate a sandwich when we got home and crashed on the couch. No fair today. Fantastic. It is really a bore this year. Hardly any freebies. Even the guard normally has a helicopter, howitzer, deuce, only had an unarmored Hummer. Whoohoo. I can see one of those everyday, in pieces.
Looked at the cap first. It was aok. When tearing down the carb, I noticed the top diaphragm covering the spring wrinkled, shriveled, on the 'thin edge' when I pulled it off. It may of been sucking air when enough dirt wasn't covering the edge?
After I got the mower running, it went up and down in rpms slightly, loosing power when cutting light grass. I thought , 'Well, I tried.' After two minutes, the mower planed out, running strong. I went through the heavier wet grass, plugging the chute, it didn't begin to bog. It ran like a 5.5 should. I got so excited, I didn't realize I was in bare feet until I was half done mowing the front. I looked down to see my feet were greener than a Martian's. A word to the wise... Don't mow bare foot. It is hard to get the stains out, especially on the sole. I'm going to hear about it when the boss sees one of her good, white wash rags is now green. I should hide it in the garage. I can always use another rag.
Anyway, I hadn't had this much power out of this mower, even when new. Noticed it used a little less fuel, too.
And thanks kj for the vids. Mine happened to be a diff build.

 

[RaWarrior]

The old B&S carbs are fairly straightforward and carb kits are readily available.

However, the newer B&S motors (that are labeled as XXX Series, with the x being torque rating), have worthless, cheapo, non-rebuildable carbs. I took the carb off my 1450 series and it's literally solid state. The jets are pressed into the body and appear to be plastic. I got ahold of a service manual for it and for any sort of running issue, after some ignition checks is to "replace carburetor". Talk about a "disposable" engine.

The last Tecumpseh motors were the same way, the last couple years before they went out of business. Our snowblower started running like ass last year so I took the carb apart and found another non-serviceable pile of crap.