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carb leaking gas on K341s engine


jfmolter

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The carb on my AC 716-6, K341s engine had gas dripping out of it after mowing the lawn yesterday. Engine running rough and loading up at idle.

my question is, is it better just replace the carb with a cheap one from Amazon or put a kit in the old one?

The kit at Amazon is 6 bucks for two and looks like just a seat, some gaskets and a needle valve.

how easy are these carbs to overhaul? 

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Fairly easy to do. For 6 bucks I would try a kit first. Dripping gas usually is a needle & seat problem or a gas logged float. Will be a learning experience if nothing else. Good luck.

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Floats are brass, rarely go bad. As noted usually needle and seat. Taking main jet (not the main needle) out of the body can cause issues sometimes. Just make sure the screwdriver tip fits the slot well and doesn't gouge the threads on the side (might require sacrificing a screw driver to the grinder to get both). Don't mess with choke or throttle butterfly screws. Otherwise not much to it.

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Check your throttle shaft for wear.  It shouldn't flop around.  That is very common for them to be shot, which is a source of dirty air into the engine and will cause trouble with trying to get it tuned in.  Assuming you have the Kohler(Carter) carb and not a Walbro carb, a throttle shaft and bushing kit is still available for them. You will need to disassemble the carb and get some measurements off the original throttle shaft in order to get the proper replacement kit.   About $70.00 or so I think.  I never played much with the Walbro brand carbs on the K series, but they had them.  Never liked them - didn't seem to have the same tuneability as a Kohler carb.  Real late models or replacements could even have a fixed jet carb.

I recently installed a Chinese knock off Kohler carb on a friends K241 - his choice - his money.  Looked identical to the shot original.  Ended up having to modify the throttle lever - it hit his air filter base.  I have heard guys talk about fuel leaking right through the carb body on the cheap imports.  Get what ya pay for.  So far so good with the one I installed.  Tim

 

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I have a Chinese carb on one of my sun stars, one on our Argo and one on a push mower. Hasn't been any problems with any of them so far.

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I have had good luck with the cheap Chinese knock-offs but I don't like their flimsy plastic floats so I replace them with the brass float from the old carburetor. I found the parts to be interchangeable.

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thanks guys for all of the great info, my carb kit should come today and i'll see how that goes.

If it doesn't work out I might try one of the Chinese ones and put the original float in it.

Thanks again for all of the help.

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My preference is to rebuild originl Kohler carbs, as they work the best. Dont care for the walbros as they are more tempramental.

My experience with the cheap chineese knock offs is that I purchased one. It works fine it seems, not quite the same starting characteristics as an original, but it does work. Second carb I bought did not work. Would idle, but would not run right at higher rpms. Tried using oem parts in it, but the chineese knock offs are not entirely the same dimensions, so parts do not interchange 100%. (my experience anyhow) That and the parts I put in did not make any difference in that particular carb.

I bought from a 100% positive seller who immediately sent me another carb with no  problem, and it worked fine. Was explained to me by seller that it is known that a certain percentage of these chineese carbs will be faulty. So just buy from a experienced reputable seller and shouldnt be any problems other than having to wait a little longer for another carb.

But, as stated earlier, best carb is an oem kohler.

Edited by SmilinSam
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1 minute ago, SmilinSam said:

My preference is to rebuild originl Kohler carbs, as they work the best. Dont care for the walbros as they are more tempramental.

My experience with the cheap chineese knock offs is that I purchased one. It works fine it seems, not quite the same starting characteristics as an original, but it does work. Second carb I bought did not work. Would idle, but would not run right at higher rpms. Tried using oem parts in it, but the chineese knock offs are not entirely the same dimensions, so parts do not interchange 100%. I bought from a 100% positive seller who immediately sent me another carb with no  problem. Was explained to me by seller that it is known that a certain percentage of these chineese carbs will be faulty. So just buy from a experienced reputable seller and shouldnt be any problems other than having to wait a little longer for another carb.

But, as stated earlier, best carb is an oem kohler.

True, I had one that leaked and seller sent me another carb at no cost and told me not to send back the original...so I kept it for parts.

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Good to know about the Chinese carbs. I have a Kohler off an old Troy bilt that a guy sent to a shop with the question "Is it worth rebuilding?" Well, the shop sells new engines, as well, so the answer was NO. A new engine was installed on the Troy bilt, and I got a scrap engine with lousy compression. I lapped and adjusted the valves and have a nice Kohler with good compression. However, the shop was nice to the owner, and put a Tecumseh carb back on the engine to send it home with the NO response, so my Kohler needs a carb. When I need the engine, will get a Chinese carb, unless I find a Kohler carb at a flea market or yard sale

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Well got the carb off yesterday and attempted to rebuild it. First, the cheap kit that I got had no parts that would fit with the exception of the gaskets.

the good news is that after disassembling and cleaning the carb up I found a piece of gunk in the seat resulting in it not being able to close and causing the carb to flood. also looks like this carb had been rebuilt pretty recently. The engine is running good now. I am wondering now, should I install a filter between the tank and fuel pump to prevent this from happening again, also probably should dump out the gas tank and give it a through cleaning.

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On 5/27/2019 at 10:05 AM, jfmolter said:

. I am wondering now, should I install a filter between the tank and fuel pump to prevent this from happening again,

I pretty much put a  inline shut off in after the tank followed by a fuel filter before the pump or carb. in all my tractors I fix up. The shut off makes it easy to turn the fuel off and let the engine run its fuel system out of fuel for winter storage.

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I do have a shut off between the fuel pump and the tank, got an inline filter today also some stabilizer will install the filter tomorrow and add stabilizer on my next gas can fill up.

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