I just got my new, old Savage and I'm having a problem starting the engine. It's a 97 model, 3300 miles.

Engine cranks fine.  Choke makes no difference. After cranking it for a while, I do smell gas.  

It occasionally starts and runs for 10 seconds or so, then dies.  Sort of like it's running out of gas.

Anyone have any suggestions for what to look at first?  Replace the gas? Replace the spark plug? Clean and rebiuld the carb?

Thanks,
Steve

I don't know how old the gasoline is.  It smells like ok, but I don't guess that's much of test.

I've tried the petcock on all three settings.  No diference with that.

The only diagnostic, is that when it does briefly start, it's on the second or third try of cranking.  If it fires up then, it willl not fire up again until I let it sit there for a while. That would be like it's flooded. .

I just tried the steps posted in another thread:
1) Pri for 10 seconds, move to normal, try to start with not choke, and
2) then throttle, no choke.

Neither worked.

Try rapping on the float bowl with a plastic or wooden screwdriver handle.

It sounds like either your float valve is sticking or your carb is gummed up.

You might try adding some Sea Foam carb cleaner to the gas in the correct porportion. You can find it at most auto parts.

Before you rip the carb apart. Are you sure that you have spark on the plug? I would check the spark plug and its operation before go at the carb. Boy, I hope that you did the spark plug door mod already ??? Otherwise, it's another can of worm to get to spark plug

Ok had a chance to sit down and think on this....  

- sounds like you have spark as it runs for a few seconds
- may want to swap the plug anyway a couple of champion RA6HCs are cheap and you can use them later to tune on the carb.

After it runs 10 seconds and dies with the petc0ck set to On - pull the carb drain at the bottom of the bowl - did a couple of ounces of gas drain out? - just wanting to make sure it's flooding and not running dry

I know of at least a couple of ways it will do this, that is run for a few seconds and flood out:

Float is sticking open - either the cutoff needle is bad or the seat or just some trash is in the way not letting it shut off the gas

The Mikuni is a slide carb - the round slide has a needle that hangs out the bottom of the slide and closes the main jet off until enough vac causes it to lift and open the main jet - if this slide is hanging because it's dirty or it can't close off the main jet because of trash in the needle jet tube the needle fits into it will do this - you can remove the seat to have a better look and pull off the rubber tube that goes from the cab to the air box to have a look at this slide it should go up and down very smooth.

The petc0ck is vacuume operated when set to On and Res - the vac line runs from the right hand side (starboard) of the carb to the back side of the petc0ck - this operates a diaphram - if this diaphram is leaking it will let raw fuel be sucked straight into the engine - you can remove this vac and see if it has any gas in it - it should not  

Let us know how your getting along with this problem, sounds like a fun one.

Digger wrote on 12/31/69 at 16:00:12:



Thanks.  I think there is more to it than flooding.  Sometimes I can get it to run a little, then it dies like it's out of gas.  If I go back a couple of hours later, it does the same thing.

I actually got it to run about 30 seconds last night. Rev'd it up a little, then it failed as soon as I let off the throttle.

Steve