I have to preface this by saying I know VERY little about small engine machines or for that matter, carburetors.

This part is fuzzy, so I can't say for sure this is how it happened: Last year the snowblower was running poorly and leaking fuel, so I thought I would try slapping a new carb on it. To the best of my recollection, it worked fine after that.

I keep my yard machines outside under the deck because my garage is so damn small, I don't have room for them in there with 3 cars. I got out my snowblower to use for this winter. I went to put gas in it, and it started leaking again. It seemed to be leaking from where the air cleaner stuff meets the outer flange of the carb. I got some new gaskets and put them on. Put gas in it, no leaks. Started the engine so far so good. Went to take it off choke, and it died. Tried letting it warm up for a while and then took it off choke. Died. I noticed there's this thingy that's conveniently hidden under the gas tank that operates these two linkages that I assume have something to do with the choke yanking back and forth on them making the idle roll. I have NO idea what that is, or how it works. I tried holding the linkage steady and the engine died, so apparently it needs to do that. Whatever. Noted and moved on.

I did a little internet searching and found that there are little air passages in the carb that can become blocked. Like an idle air bypass on a car. So, I took the stupid thing back apart. I had noticed that the gaskets I had just installed didn't so much match the holes in the brackets or carb that well, but I tried to match up the gasket names to the diagram in the manual. Of course none of them matched the holes perfectly like they should, so I was just pulling answers out of my ass using the names. The stupid diagram is a mirror image of what i physically have (so helpful!) and my brain just doesn't work in a way that lets me visualize it like it actually should be. Anyway, I cut the one gasket on the outer flange to the carb so that all of the holes and whatever around the outside were not blocked. Put it back together, and now things are worse. It will start, but it acts like it's out of gas. It runs for less than a second and dies.

Internet searches about THIS problem pretty much yielded a gummed up fuel system inside the carb. That doesn't make a lot of sense to me since the carb is so new. Although, I have been using 87 octane gas station regular unleaded, which as we know, has ethanol in it. Could I really be looking at a gummed up carb already? What about the fact that it at least ran on choke before?!

I really hate working on this thing because the stupid carb is underneath and behind, so it's really hard to get at, and you really can't see what the f*** you're doing unless you crouch and hold your head upside down! Argh! You have to take like 15 bolts out and two big pieces of outer structure off too.

Any ideas?