Someone put gasoline in the oil fill...

Someone put gas in the oil filler tube! And filled it up! Good God! I think it was my mother-in-law trying to help but she won't admit it. My brother-in-laws are NOT too machanicly inclined but I'm sure they know where to put the gas and the oil... I think... ANYWAY, Google chrome led me here. So I drained all the gas/oil out the oil drain tube, pulled the spark pin and blew out the cylinder as best as I could. I then dry started it a couple times,(no oil plug, oil, or spark pin in it). Then blew it out some more. After blowing it out until no more gas was visibly coming out, I put all new oil, spark pin and air filter in and now she won't stay running without hitting it with a shot of starting fluid. HELP PLEASE! I'm thinking the carb float was stuck or too full cuz the first sign I noticed there was a problem was a puddle of gas sitting in the air filter/ intake part just before the carb when I was changing the air filter. Then I pulled the dipstick to see and smell gas. What do you think? Carb/ float???

 

Hello ironreign44,

No one filled your crankcase with fuel, The float needle valve is faulty or was stuck open and that caused the carb to flood and fill the crankcase.

The fix is purchase a carb rebuild kit and clean the carb good then install the kit components.....


Good Luck

 

And by cleaning he does not mean just blowing some air into it. Use carberator cleaner to clean out the old sticky varnish build up.
That float sticking is by far on of the most common problums when starting it up for the first time in the season.

 

I also read on another thread to put a fuel shut off valve in the fuel line to prevent this from happening. It all adds up. Thanks fellas for all your input.

 

The fuel shutoff can prevent the engine from filling with gas when it's not running, but it doesn't fix the problem, just the symptom. The carb needs repair in order to fix the problem.