Cub Cadet snowthrower

[MoneyGuy]

It starts but immediately stalls. Is there a ball or something that can be lodged in the wrong place to prevent gasoline from flowing? Any advice appreciated.

[Fuzz]

Pull off the air filter and see if it runs. If so, clean out or replace the filter.

[jmac98]

I don’t know a lot about this stuff, however, at the beginning of summer my lawnmower was doing the same thing you described. I found someone on kijiji to do a tune up for $50 or so and it fixed the problem right up. I remember the fellow was saying aside from changing the air filter that components can just gum up over time and needs a thorough clean. Perhaps you’re having a similar issue and a tune up is all you need.
Best of luck. Feel free to come test it on my driveway this winter.

[Fuzz]

Ya, if it is not the air filter it's most likely a gummed up carb. Not super hard to clean up if you are OK with disassembly. The issue these days is they put ethanol in our gas, and that tends to gel up after months of sitting. The solution is to always use a stabilizer before storage and run it for a little bit to let it run through, and try not to leave any fuel in it. The other one is buy Shell premium. As far as I know it is one of the only ones without ethanol. Since I switched to that I haven't had a problem in my mower, other than the clogged air filter which showed similar symptoms. The difference was with the air filter it would run for a few seconds, where the gummed carb was about a second.

[#22]

^^^
This. I use Shell Premium in my lawnmower. Bought it new in 1998, have never had to pull the carb, still running strong

Remove & disassemble the carb, clean all the bits with some carb cleaner and re- assemble

If you’re not comfortable with that, try removing the air cleaner and spraying some carb cleaner into the throat while starting / running it. Sometimes that can solve the issue.

[Hessen]

Last winter mine would not start. I changed out the gas in it and it worked.

[Flacker]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Ya, if it is not the air filter it's most likely a gummed up carb. Not super hard to clean up if you are OK with disassembly. The issue these days is they put ethanol in our gas, and that tends to gel up after months of sitting. The solution is to always use a stabilizer before storage and run it for a little bit to let it run through, and try not to leave any fuel in it. The other one is buy Shell premium. As far as I know it is one of the only ones without ethanol. Since I switched to that I haven't had a problem in my mower, other than the clogged air filter which showed similar symptoms. The difference was with the air filter it would run for a few seconds, where the gummed carb was about a second.

Yeah an easy start and then immediately dies, is a clogged idle jet. The jet that draws fuel and primes for starting is a larger diameter, so it get an initial shot of fuel and starts, but the idle jet is plugged so it won't stay running. Carb cleaner to the rescue!

As noted be sure to buy a premium fuel with no ethanol, small engine repair shops must love ethanol fuel. Gums up all of the inner workings of the carb, when left for any period of time.