Briggs 6.5 OHV runs only on starter fluid

Last summer, probably in June or July, I bought a used Yard Machines wood chipper with a Briggs 6.5 OHV engine. I would say it's easily more than 5 years old. It started and ran well when I went to buy it.

I brought it home and haven't started it since until this weekend. It will start and run with starter fluid sprayed into the air cleaner, but stops once I stop feeding it starter fluid. I tried this for about 5 minutes. There was a little bit of gas in it, and I filled it before attempting to start it.

Any help would be appreciated. I am a heck of a tinkerer, and good mechanically, but I don't know much about small engines. I'm game to give it a shot, however.

 

Take the bowl off the carburetor and clean it out, clean the holes in the bowl screw and see if it runs after this. If not, the carb may need to be removed and cleaned better.

 

Sounds like your float is stuck or your jets are dirty both are on the carb. You should be able to pull the jets out and use a tip cleaner to clean them. The float may have a hole in it and full of gas.

 

Well, I took the carburator off, which was pretty easy. The float floats. The hole through the bowl screw was clean. How do I clean the jets?

 

Most jets (both) are generally less than $10 apiece (and mostly under $6) and unless you have a good (and expensive) commercial bath cleaner you might be further ahead just to buy new jets. Otherwise torch cleaners on the larger jet holes and for the smaller holes use a discarded inlet needle clip from a Tecumseh float-carb'd engine.

 

I found this video which is almost exactly my carburetor, so that took the mystery out and I'm working through cleaning it: HOW TO CLEAN The Carburetor on BRIGGS & Stratton Quantum Lawnmower Engines - YouTube

HOW TO CLEAN The Carburetor on BRIGGS & Stratton Quantum Lawnmower Engines - YouTube