craftsman 16" chainsaw won't start

[erobj]

The model # is 358.355161.

A friend gave this to me. He didn't use it very much, put it away with gas in it and couldn't get it started.

I figured it would be pretty easy.

I dumped out the old gas, put fresh gas in with a 40:1 mix.

I had the swith on and the choke in the correct position.

I gave it quite a few pulls and there was no start.

I took the top cover off and sprayed starting fluid in the top of the carb, straight down the throat, slid the choke back and it wouldn't even fire.

I pulled and pulled with choke open closed, squeezing the throttle, not squeezing the throttle. Pull-o-rama with or without starting fluid and not even a putter.

I pulled the plug and it was wet.

Put my finger in the spark plug hole and pulled and it blew my finger out of the hole.

The plug is good and it has a nice blue spark.

Put the plug back in and wore myself out pulling and pulling.

Nothing, not even a single fire, with or without starting fluid.

The fuel lines seem clean and not all dried out. All have fuel in them, and thier all connected too.

He said he's only had it running maybe an hour before putting it away with gas in it. It's not even very dirty. For the life of me, I can't figure out why this thing won't even fire!?

Any ideas?

 

[computeruser]

Does it have compression? If so, you probably flooded the heck out of it with all the pulling. It is obviously drawing fuel, so it should at least sputter after a couple pulls.

Pull the plug and pull it over a couple times, upside-down, to make sure no fuel is puddled in the bottom of the crankcase. Then try again with a couple pulls on choke and then no-choke from the on...

 

[romeo]

Do you have spark?

Pull the plug out and bite the bullet, stick a screw driver in the plug wire and grab it and give it a yank (it wont be so bad).

If you have no spark then check to see if the kill switch or wire running to it is grounding out. If you determine the problem is not there and still have no spark then you have a bad ignition module.

 

[SawTroll]

Sounds like a classic flooding issue.

Next time around (after getting the excess fuel out), open the choke after 3 pulls, if nothing happens in those pulls......

 

[romeo]

Plugged screen

Something else to check. In the muffler outlet there is a screen that is removable. Pull it and see if its plugged. If it is you can clean it up by burning the carbon off with a propane torch.

 

[mattinky]

I recently had an old Poulan that did the same thing, I got so pi**ed off I just put it on the shelf and forgot about it. A couple weeks later it started on the second pull and now starts just fine. Sometimes you can flood them so bad that they get mad at you and refuse to start until they get dried out and good & ready to start LOL ! ! ! Matt

:deadhorse:

 

[musch]

yep, i had a run in like this too, recently, and bad gas was the catalyst. Anyways, I flooded it out, and later, no trouble at all, anyways...:bang: