Just purchase some carb cleaner or fuel treatment and treat the current fuel an ounce should clean up any gunning or debris that is starving your unit . You should ensure a fuel storage treatment when ever you store your trimmer for more than a couple of weeks . Startron at Wal-Mart gives you 2 yrs of storage of fuel .

Ok. I have some carb cleaner. I'll give that a try. I'm using True Fuel, which is supposed to be good for 2 yrs after opening. Thanks for the reply.

FWIW, I store my Homelite Versatool with the shaft up and the power head down and have never had a problem, even when it didn't get used for a couple of years.

I really couldn't see how a vertical orientation could cause a problem. Glad that's the case. I was happy that I finally got everything up off the floor.

I tried spraying the passages with carb cleaner. No difference. Next (and last attempt) will be to soak the whole carb in cleaner. Not sure that the cleaner is safe for everything inside. That's why I've held off on doing that. Oh, well... nothing to lose now. If it doesn't work, I'll just buy a new carb. That defies my whole fix-vs-replace philosophy, but sometimes, I guess you have to just throw in the towel.

GH I meant adding an ounce or so to the current fuel . Since your unit is running it will breakdown the gumming while the engine is running even if you need to apply partial choke . Within a few minutes it will begin to work. Even better let it work overnite , then restart it the next day .

I would inspect the inlet needle valve under the silver cover stamped Zama . Also the priming circuits under the rubber purge bulb may be compromised . The inspection and cleaning is a 10 minute job . Good that you don,t use efuel so the gumming should be minute , perhaps a little varnish or dirt only . Your storage practice is not an issue !

I'm having a carb problem with a chainsaw right now and one thing that was recommended around the web was taking out the adjustment needles and cleaning/polishing them. You can't really clean out the tiny passages but if the needle is gunked at all it can help. Of course you have to readjust everything from scratch when you put them back in, but it sounds like you know enough about carbs to handle that. :-]

Good pointers , tox . Eventually the high and low jets do become fouled also both around the seats and the needles themselves . Some needles actually have plastic or epdm that can swell and cause erratic idle etc ! I usually readjust every chainsaw or trimmers blower I service . Just cleaning or replacing an air filter will cause carburetor set point adjustments as will elevation or barometric pressure changes lol.

I finally got it running, and I didn't have to remove any plugs, jets, or needles. Well, I DID remove the needle valve. My philosophy when it comes to engines is, if everything is right, the factory adjustments should still be good. If they're not, then something is wrong. Maybe bad gas, a bad plug, a clogged air filter, etc.

What wound up working was, removing everything from the exterior of the carb that could be removed without removing plugs, leaving just the body of the carb. I soaked the whole carb body in carb cleaner for about 5 minutes, then sprayed out all the passages with the same cleaner. Since I wasn't sure that the cleaner wouldn't damage things, I immediately reassembled it, and tried to crank it. It cranked. Ran bad for a minute. At first, I couldn't tell that anything had changed, but then the RPM's finally started increasing. After about 3 minutes, it was at peak RPM (with a blower attachment as a load). I guess the carb cleaner caused it to run bad for a few seconds, then, being emissions-compliant, it took a few minutes to warm up. I put the blower attachment on my mother's power head, and it ran identically to mine. I probably spent 5 hrs on this. A new carb is $60 delivered. That comes out to $12/hr. I guess that was worth it. If I had done it right the first time, I'd have only spent maybe 2 hrs on it.

Comparing my carb to my mother's, I DID find that mine was missing the roller guide that the throttle rotor rides on. I did a rebuild on this carb last year. The rebuild didn't fix the problem I was having, so I kept the old parts. The collection of old parts contained the roller guide. I didn't know what it was at the time, and the engine seemed to run fine without it. The throttle rotor has a hole in it that lines up with the venturi at full throttle. Without that guide, the rotor sits low by, I don't know... maybe 0.020"? The hole in the rotor didn't exactly line up with the venturi, which would reduce max power. So having a known good carb for comparison proved worthwhile.

I usually ultrasonic clean really troublesome carbs . As I previously indicated , the inlet needle valve is the most prevalent cause of no start conditions . Fouled jets often effect performance more than actually starting issues . As I said I usually do a complete inspection and tuning in a half hour within the shop , however have been repairing small engines for over 35 yrs , so I am not surprised all that often ! Good to here the fix was simple .

Thanks for all the replies.