Rounded up the original carb. Soaked the frozen solenoid, not up to the electrical "seal" in a mix of vinegar and table salt. This is known to be an effective "corrosion remover". Let is sit for a day, then probed the solenoid plunger with a toothpick, testing if free. Sure enough it move a bit, so soaked it another day. Freed up quite nicely, so rinsed it out well and squirted a bit of WD40, then tested it with a 12v battery. Seemed to click nicely, so, I think it's "good".
Soaked the carb, bowl and main jet in a dilute mix of "Industrial" Simple Green, which is NOT green, per their carb cleaning ratio. Done this before with other carbs and some plastic Gas tanks that were really gummed up. Amazed at how well a water based solution worked.
Let it sit for a few days, ok, I forgot about them, and they cleaned up quite well, too. Rinsed with water and blew out with air, then doused with WD-40 for good measure.
Look good to me, only concern is the float bowl "needle" and the bowl gaskets. With the prices for repair kits being in the "No Way Jose" zone, I pretty much think I will just chance it with what I've got.
In the spring, when it get's a bit warmer and drier outside.
Mean time, I wonder if I should get a eBay special "Ultrasonic Cleaner" as a new toy?
No you shouldn't. Lol
For some reason, in the past 15 or so years are you at handful of people have bought these and they kind of insist on using them to clean out carburetors when it's a lot more time and effort on their part plus the expensive buying the cleaner.
Then there's the big discussion about different things they use as the cleaning fluid but it's all irrelevant to me.
I understand not everyone does this for a living and needs to be or wants to be as efficient as possible but even when you're peddling and tinkering with things and have lots of free time, why wouldn't you want to apply that to doing other things instead of wasting all the extra time to clean carbs this way?
All you really need is a can of spray carb cleaner which I've been using the super tech from Walmart almost exclusively for a number of years because it's the cheapest one out there. It works just as well as gumout or any other brand and even though it's gone up three different times since covid, it's still the cheapest I can get per ounce.
This, and some paper towels, or the thicker white rags from a box, or the blue shop disposable shop clothes or regular red shop cloths or microfiber towels or old t-shirts etc..... fit the bill nicely for cleaning out bowls etc.
The issue I have with the way most people approach a carburetor problem is the first thing they do is spend a bunch of time and risk messing things up by taking the entire carburetor off the machine.
This is unnecessary at least 85-90% of the time.
On most of these Kohler CV series on riders or zero turns, if you put a pad down and kneel on it or sit on the ground, they are right at eye level.
Cleaning one of these out and getting them to run properly is somewhere between a 7 and 12 minute procedure if that.
If it's a gravity fed one where it's going to leak, you can either pinch the fuel line if it's still soft and pliable or just remove the fuel line from the carburetor and sticky 5/16 bolt in it or whatever to plug it.
Then remove the ball and spray off the insides of the carb and the float etc and wipe out the inside of the bowl.
They're the most important part is the main jet which is usually screwed into the side of the center part of the carb that dips down into the bowl.
You can easily blast that out with the straw tube attachment on the carb cleaner can and I often use strong compressed air from my compressor blow gun also and I like to run a soft copper wire or something through there that soft enough that's not going to enlarge the brass jet.
Usually, the gaskets are reusable.
I typically like to but the fuel line back on and let a little bit of gas run through it as I work the float up and down with the top of my fingernail lightly and also make sure the float is adjusted properly but it usually is.
Then you put the bowl back on and the machine typically starts right up.
There's just no reason in the vast majority of these cases to remove the carburetor and risk tearing other gaskets or creating intake leaks and or mess up the adjustment of the linkage and governor as happens so commonly when people take these apart without lots of experience of putting them back together.
Very rarely I need for an ultrasonic cleaner or even soaking these.
Even on your typical Honda push mower which gets clogged up quite easily, even if you do have to take the carb off to clean out all of the passages, when simply cleaning the main jet won't get it running smoothly without surging, there's no reason to soak.
I have a couple of small, correctly sized wires, but I can reach into the smooth bore and clean out the small air bleed holes.
Once the carburetor is in my hand it takes no more than 4 minutes to fully clean it out and have it ready to put back on.
These Hondas are pretty simple so it's only about a minute and a half to two minutes to take it off and put it back on so again I'm right back at about the 8 or 9 minute mark.
I know it's not really a race and as I said earlier people who only have one to do have plenty of time they can take on it but I just don't see any reason to make it take longer than needed or to have to soak something overnight or days etc or even 20 or 30 minutes or to buy a device that isn't really necessary to get the desired goal.
I'll be doing one of those Hondas a little bit later today. Lol
Of course I'll also be doing a Tecumseh on a snowblower too.
