My bloody mower won't start

[Pancho]

Hmm. It ran fine last week until it ran out of fuel. So I topped it up - but would it start again?

I thought I'd leave it and let the fuel seep through to wherever fuel needs to go.

But, today - still nowt. And I've worn myself out yanking on it.

So, I'm leaving it some more  (sat in the sun this time) - in case too much fuel has seeped to wherever fuel is supposed to go and I'll try it later without the choke.

If this fails, any suggestions. I'm loathe to pay someone to fix what must be a really simple machine. OTOH, my grass seems to be growing with some rapidity - last weekend's trim has simply encouraged it, I think.

[Wobbly John]

Take the spark plug out & clean it. This will also allow excess fuel to evaporate if you have flooded it.

If you ran the last of old fuel out last week, yiou may have pulled some dirt into the carb. 

[Pancho]

Thanks, John.

I'm thinking it might be the carb. I did manage to coax it briefly into life but it rapidly died again.

Filth in the last drops of fuel being dragged into the carb makes sense. I'm now googling how tricky a job this might be. At first glance there appear to be lots of small parts and much pingfuckit potential.

[pcolbeck]

You could try a carb cleaner spray. Just take off all the hoses to the carb and blast in the spray.

[rogerzilla]

And I've worn myself out yanking on it

I feel your pain, brother 

[rogerzilla]

What mower is it?  Hondas have a filter in the tank so shouldn't suck any dirt into the carb; it can be blocked by gum from stale fuel, though.  Mowers don't normally get vapour lock because the carb is gravity fed.  If the mower is flooded there may be instructions in the owner's manual for starting it.  On mine, the mower is supposed to be tilted with the air filter uppermost during cranking with the throttle wide open for quickest clearance,

[Pancho]

It's a Honda something. Rather expensive 15 years ago. Manual is long gone. Probably filed in the same "safe place" as 20 years worth of spare keys, various certificates and children's school reports. A sort of WOM (Write Only Memory) for physical things.

I'll try the tilting idea.