Briggs and Stratton lawnmower carb clean was pretty easy, but messy. The carb is easy to maintain.
Not is he, diligent at dumping his gas after last summer’s end, so it was no surprise when his lawnmower would not start this spring. As the grass was getting to the 1 foot mark, there was some urgency to get it going. Alas, no amount of pulling would start the mower. The carb must be cleaned.
Empty the lawn mower of all gas. Keep the gas in a proper container, as you’ll need it later. Remove the air cleaner cover and air cleaner, one bolt, Philips head.
The primer cover, with the rubber ball pump, also covers the float bowl, so you need to remove it. It is attached by 3 x 3mm bolts, easy to remove. You need not disconnect it, just get it out of the way. Take care not to rip the rubber gasket. Also disconnect the slow/fast lever, which is one spring.
I like to get a bowl of some kind and put all the bolts and sundries you removed, into the bowl. This way when you are finished there should be nothing left in the bowl.
Remove the fuel line. It just needs a pair of pliers to pinch the clip tabs, which loosens the ring. Pull the fuel line off.
Underneath you’ll see the carb, and the carb float bowl (brownish colour) below. They are attached to the mower by 2 x 10mm bolts. I could not get my ratchet in there, but the socket does fit. I used the screwdriver handle with adapter for the socket. They are not super tight.
Once the carb is removed, remove the float bowl. It uses a 13mm socket. Clean everything up. Take the pin out for the float, remove the float and float needle, clean everything. The float needle just slots into a plastic grove on the floats, so there’s no spring or anything else. Put these parts into the parts bowl and do not lose them.
I use a plastic bristle from a broom to stick into the small orifices of the carb. There is an orifice for the float needle, then there are 2 for the jet. One hole goes straight through to the carb body, so this must be for air. The other is shallow and harder to clean.
Finally I blew everything out with carb cleaner. Carb cleaner is toxic, explosive, and should not be messed with. We used an old dofu container to contain the liquid mess, but mess it did. Lots of gritty stuff came out. I was concentrating on blowing the carb cleaner into the orifices, but the lawn mower owner noticed all the junk that came out.
We buttoned everything up, added gas, and after 5-6 pulls and extra priming it fired up. The Briggs and Stratton engines and specifically carbs are well made and easy to clean. Of course they should not need cleaning if you dump the gas and clean the float bowl just before winter.
Briggs and Stratton lawnmower carb clean was pretty easy, but messy. The carb is easy to maintain.
