Morning toast: Snowblower caught on fire.....

With winter upon us once again and the two original aged snowblowers wheezing their way to the end, I had bought a used walk-behind last year for ~$150.00....an MTD with a 5 hp Tecumseh SnowKing engine.  After a little TLC with the carb and some hose and wire replacements, it seemed to be running okay,-- not great, but passable for the price.  This morning was the first time starting the blowers in preparation for an approaching storm and this new addition was giving me problems starting.  I knew from past experience that hitting the priming bulb too many times can not only flood the system but cause excessive amounts of fuel to potentially run down the side of the engine housing under the carb and this morning was no exception.  Yet for the first time, a good pull on the cord caused a fireball to burst out of the muffler and quickly I had what looked like an impaled marshmallow that danced too close to the flames....a gasoline fire only too happy to make use of spilt fuel.  Fortunately, the garage door was open so I quickly turned the fuel shutoff to 'closed', pulled the blower out of the buidling, and dumped a nearby bucket of water on the fireworks  which extinguished it in short order.

Now what to do?  This newer blower is a bit of a later clone of a 5 hp model that I have from previous years.....it's still working, but showing its age.  Should I just use the toasted one as a source for parts? Minimally, the carburetor side of the engine would need overhaul.....new carb, wiring, hoses (fuel/primer/etc), for around $25.00 or I could just replace the engine altogether....there is some notion that this engine may have valve seating issues that possibly contributed to the incident....in which case I'm inclined to find a replacement engine altogether.  Thoughts?

Edit:  Recently was made aware of new walk behinds that are electric with Lithium batteries.....any experience with these from those in colder regions where one is blowing snow sometimes around 0F (~ -18C)?  Thanks!.....

Yikes! Fire is not good. Glad you're okay.

I like the old Tecumseh engines. They seem to keep plugging on forever.

When starting an engine that has been sitting, I sometimes pull the spark plug and squirt in half an ounce of gas with a syringe. Saves a lot of excess pulling (kills my shoulder), and keeps the carb from flooding too much.

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:
.....When starting an engine that has been sitting, I sometimes pull the spark plug and squirt in half an ounce of gas with a syringe. Saves a lot of excess pulling (kills my shoulder), and keeps the carb from flooding too much.

I'm going to remember this as the carb/air-intake on this engine is not accessible as with some others for doing the same....Thanks, Douglas!  With a shoulder rotator cuff strain already dogging me this winter, all the more reason to use both the method you mention and the electric start (only on the older units, not this new one at present) for starting.

Just got done pulling the carb and toasted hoses and wirings.   All-in-all in better shape than I thought, so I may try the carb replacement kit which comes with many extras beyond the carb itself.  Since the engine does have a ring-gear, I may add the electric start if I'm going though the repair trouble.

Dougs ideas and an electric start are top ideas.
We have a product in Australia called, 'start ya bastard!' which you spray near the air filter or even into a spark plug hole.

The main issue to fix is the fuel leak.
- dodgy fuel line
- carby gasket
- loose drain bolt etc

That fire may not have actually come from the exhaust it may have been a loose spark from the ignition leads.
Usually if you press a bulb twice its enough if its full of fuel.
Throwing water over a petrol fire is a great way to burn the shed down, an extinguisher for petrol is better.
water works ok with Methanol

John C Daley wrote:We have a product in Australia called, 'start ya bastard!' which you spray near the air filter or even into a spark plug hole.

Haha, love the name!

Aerosol starting fluid is available here too, but it's a little tricky. Use too much and you can blow your engine, and maybe singe off your eyebrows as well. Personally I would avoid using it inside a building.

We have Aerostart as well.
I used it on a racing engine once when it was cold, my engine builder told me it may damage the crankshaft, called 'the crank' over here.
Since I was using Methanol which is difficult to start with a very cold engine I used a spray bottle of petrol.
I asked for buckets of water to be near me, because if methanol burns there is no flame.
I hang a piece of foam rubber which was a sacrificial smoke creating item if I caught fire, because the black smoke from the foam would show up.
At that point the water had to be thrown over me and the sidecar engine!!
Anyway, we stared the rear wheel roller to turn the engine over, sprayed a mist of petrol down the 4 carburettors until some flames appeared.
6 inch flames were ok because they heated the carby's and did not set fire to my beard or leather suit, 8 inch meant a drowning with water.
As each carby got warmer the methanol fired and the engine ran smoother. After a bout 90 seconds everything was running properly.
It always attracted a crowd of people, all who no doubt were confused.

Since I was badly burnt years ago because of a fuel leak I am sensitive to fires on my sidecar, but this system has never been an issue!!

Recently a competitor showed me how to use a sleeping bag, a small fan heater and a generator for about 20 mins. to warm the engine for a cold methanol start, its much better.

Bet you guys didn't realize these come with a black anodized finish!......   :-)    ............ kidding!    

The hapless victim was easy to remove, fortunately.  The online purchase of a new one should arrive in a few days.  Let's hope there isn't any more suprises from this blower.  If it super-novas again, I'll probably just wheel it directly into the snow drift and let the heat remove frozen mass without my assistance.  :-O   Now I'm concerned about the other 5 hp blower....the 1993 purchase.  I suppose at nearly 30 years old it's longing for a rest, but it keeps on running.  Was hard to start today, though, and the engine stumbled a bit through the first 60% of the session, then evened out like a champ for the remainder of the task.  Along with sump-pumps, these beasties get the "Golden Throttle" award for most appropriate technologies.

I don't know shit about gas engines or snowblowers, but I can tell you there's a pretty noticeable performance & runtime drop with all my lithium powered tools(ego, milwaukee, dewalt..) below zero celcius. I hope they are providing heat for those snowblower batteries... maybe you'd be alright if it lived in a heated space until immediately before putting it to work..?

D Nikolls wrote:.... there's a pretty noticeable performance & runtime drop with all my lithium powered tools(ego, milwaukee, dewalt..) below zero celcius.... maybe you'd be alright if it lived in a heated space until immediately before putting it to work..?

Thanks for adding this observation, D. Nikolls.  I'd certainly consider this given our living situation that generally does not included heated outdoor appliances.  Thanks!

Toasty sno-blower, Act III, Scene 2..... in which our protagonist attempts a repair.

The new carb arrived in a timely manner and is a perfect fit replacement.  For around $20.00 USD it came with replacement knobs for the choke and throttle and included a new fuel shut-off, priming bulb, and hoses for each....can't complain at this point.

With all assembled but final shroud left off, I gassed it up and opened the fuel line.  After setting the choke, a few pokes on the priming bulb, it fired up after the second pull......  but then idled poorly and died when choke was re-opened.  After monkeying around with it a bit, I found that the only way I could keep it running after opening the choke was to manually push the governor arm (?) to the right (blue arrow, photo A).  The throttle level was already in the 'high' (fast) run position, so normally the engine would be running at good speed at this point.  I double-checked to make sure that the new priming hose was not impeding the throttle/governor spring in any way, but nevertheless noticed that the governor arm (?) is not really moving freely.  I've seen reference elsewhere that either lubrication may be needed to free this up more or that the spring may need replacing to be able to exert enough pull on the arm to duplicate what I have been doing manually.  At any rate....seems so close, but not quite fixed.  Any suggestions on why I would need to manually push that linkage to where it normally would rest at after the engine was running?  Thanks!

The linkage is usually pushed there by wind pressing against a vane, are those parts working?