I have a Yard Machines mower with a Kohler OHV engine and my friend has a Husqvarna with a newer variant of the same engine, his engines model number is XT-7, I don't have mine off-hand. Both mowers refused to start after sitting over winter. I did a carb tear-down on both and cleaned them, put fresh fuel in, made sure gaskets were good and thought that would be the end of it ... nope! The Husqvarna will only run if I hold the choke valve shut, that engine has an automatic choke that opens up as the engine warms up. I checked for air leaks around the carb and head gasket, no problem there. I also verified that the float bowl had fuel in it, checked the vent hole on the fuel tank cap (took the cap off too). The main fuel jet is clean and clear of debris, but still for some reason its not getting enough fuel. I'm having a similar problem with the Yard Machines mower with the same engine, except this one does not have an automatic choke, on this one I can't get enough fuel to the engine for it to start at all, but I know I'm getting fuel to the float bowl. I did all the same checks on this one, still not working. Is there a common problem with these Kohler OHV engines or some other step I'm missing that would be causing the fuel starvation? Thanks!
Did you check the float height when you flamed the carb? Sounds to me that the float is too high, resulting in not enough fuel in the float bowl. This means you need a stronger vacuum when starting to draw in the fuel.
@mechanic mark, Thank you for the manual reference, that will certainly be helpful. I read through it and got a couple ideas, I was able to get my older Yard Machines mower working tonight, I took the carb apart again, checked the main fuel needle, made sure the float bowl gasket was sealing properly, and blew out the carb's various ports and pathways again.
@Rivets: that's a good point, I'll check the float on the Husqvarna, that makes sense that its not picking up enough fuel because there isn't enough in the bowl. I'll probably check the float needle again as well to make sure its not sticking or something. I'll post back when I've had a chance to work on it again.
