Briggs 126m02

[JandL]

Just a thought, Have you put that carb in a heated sonic cleaner? I have a about a 50% recovery rate when these symptoms come around. I use a cleaning solvent available from Tractor Sup and the sonic cleaner from HF.
Take the carb apart, place the body in the tank and let it have it for 480 seconds (highest setting mine has), then blow it out with shop air, don't hit it with carb cleaner until it cools down! Put it back together and see what happens. It may just work.

[rthacker7]

Really have not had much time to work on it especially with the cold. When I had to get some more gas I got ethanol free 93 octane just for
giggles. Changed the plug again and she will start with a portable drill motor but not very easily or quickly, don't think anyone could start it with the
recoil. It runs ok but hunts a bit. Split a few rounds power is ok.

Checked the head bolts and 3 were loose as sawman said (thanks for that), I suspect head gasket but have not run a lead down test yet.
Suppose to be real cold the next few days so maybe the end of the week.

[38racing]

re the ethanol free gas. I have been using that most recently but I just put a snow blade on an old Sears rider.It may have had some older ethanol gas in it. After using it I smelled gas and saw patch on garage floor. Turned out to be right below carb bowl. I forgot the shutoff valve and it appears that anti-backfire solenoid leaks gas from carb bowl. Then I noticed this white stuff all around the solenoid power wire. It was ice!. So I expect that the ethanol had likely attracted that much water.

[rthacker7]

Quite a bit warmer today and the splitter fired up a somewhat easier. Still not sure It will start with the recoil, or not sure I
can start it with the recoil, but being 20 degrees or so warmer helped a lot. It may be fine after it warms more.
The problem was head bolts as sawman said(thanks). Don't think I would have thought of loose head bolts, It seem to have
quite substantial compression pulling it over by hand.
Ran a leak-down test after head bolts and leakage was well under 15%.
Ideally I would like to have ran the leak-down before I tightened the bolts but I got in a hurry.