[mgarblik]

I was wondering what experience forum members may have good or bad with these clone carburetors you see for lawnmowers, snowblowers and the like. Sold on E-bay, Amazon and other places I imagine. They are dirt cheap and I have now bought and installed 2 of them so far. The most recent was for a Tecumseh 4.5 HP 2-stroke snowblower that was given to me free. Needle and seat were leaking and it was gummed-up inside with the usual white crust from alcohol fuel. A rebuild kit on E-bay was $30.00 + 9.95 shipping. A brand new China carb with mounting gasket, new primer bulb, primer line, and fuel filter was $11.99 and free shipping. Metal float type carb, non-adjustable. I threw it on there and it runs pretty good. A little surprised, actually.

[Chief of the 60's]

Junk. Don't fall for the cheap price. There is a reason for that. Search Evil Bay for a good price on an OEM unit. I needed a carb for a Briggs on a power washer. Found a Chinese one for $9.99 on Evil Bay, then found a new OEM one in the B&S box for $42.00 with shipping. Bought the Briggs one and never looked back.

[gtohunter]

Bought several in the $10-$12 dollar range for various engines...they work well, but if you don't drain fuel, you'll be replacing again. I keep a new spare on my shelf for my generator, as that's the one I want to run in an emergency.

[mgarblik]

Originally Posted by Chief of the 60's

Junk. Don't fall for the cheap price. There is a reason for that. Search Evil Bay for a good price on an OEM unit. I needed a carb for a Briggs on a power washer. Found a Chinese one for $9.99 on Evil Bay, then found a new OEM one in the B&S box for $42.00 with shipping. Bought the Briggs one and never looked back.

Of course that was my original thought but the only few I could find of that part number were $101.99 + 10.99 shipping. Allot to pay for a free snowblower with unknown other possible problems. So I tried the Chinese carb planing to throw it and the snowblower away if it didn't work. Pleasantly surprised it runs pretty decent.

[ZnbOlds455]

I try to run real gas in all my small engines. That alleviates a lot of the common issues nowadays. The cheap carbs work fine. They are probably more susceptible to ethanol issues than OEM units. I've had good success rebuilding the cheap ones with just gaskets. I soak the bowl and needle in acetone and hit the rest with CRC. I'll take a strand of copper wire (or rip a steel one from a wire brush) and run it through the jet, too. That will usually get me another couple years out of a carb that only gets used 1x per month during the summer.

[buds56]

I've bought 4 of them, 3 worked great, 4th one was junk. 2 were for weedeaters, 1 chainsaw, and a blower, they were all free tools someone threw away.

The one for the blower didn't work so I just tossed the blower.

For all the more they cost, it's worth a roll of the dice.

Just my opinion, Good Luck

[67drake]

I’ve also installed a few. The last was on a snowblower with Briggs engine. As said above,new carb was cheaper than a rebuilt kit. Has been running a few years now with no problems. Another was when a housing cracked, so go OEM or China. China one was 1/5 the cost. I’ve never paid over $20 for one.
I also run non ethanol 91 octane in all my small engines.

[RFCOLEMAN]

I used one on a power washer. Started on the first pull and ran fine.
I was shocked when it started on the first pull. So far so good.

[carbking]

Virtually all of my small engines are either on John Deere or Troy-Bilt equipment.

When something fails, I generally just call the dealer, and say "fix it".

Occasionally, I feel like having my fingers and arms turned into hamburger; so I order the appropriate part from the dealer.

Have not personally seen a Chinese produced small engine float. But the Chinese produced floats for cars/trucks/tractors will fail with pin holes in whatever they use for solder if used with E-10, or octane boost.

http://www.thecarburetorshop.com/John_Ruskin.jpg

Jon.

[FrankieT/A]

I bought a carb for my Troy-Bilt riding lawn mower. I paid $21.00 shipped. It looked identical to the original, came with the gaskets and runs and idles fine. I was skeptical but I figured for 20 bucks I'd take a chance. So far so good!

[rohrt]

One of the youtube channels I watch on dirtbike Jennies Garage, watched him deal with china carbs. Junk is what I would call them.

[Chief of the 60's]

Originally Posted by mgarblik

Of course that was my original thought but the only few I could find of that part number were $101.99 + 10.99 shipping. Allot to pay for a free snowblower with unknown other possible problems. So I tried the Chinese carb planing to throw it and the snowblower away if it didn't work. Pleasantly surprised it runs pretty decent.

Ugh..... You said the dreaded S word.

[61-63]

Not the same thing but I replaced our fifteen year old portable Sears generator in August of '18 with a 11500 starting watts/9200 operating watts electric start Champion generator and the whole thing is made in China. Other than exercising our generator monthly I only use them when a hurricane comes through and then they are used extensively. In '08 we were without power for 23 days and in '05 something like that. After Laura about six weeks ago we lost power for three days I think it was. During the hurricane deals they are run from about 5pm all night until about 9am the next day, or more. I use 89 octane ethanol laced fuel in them. I've never had any trouble with any of them nor with the Stihl and Echo weed whackers, blowers, chain saws, etc., all of which also contain items made across the pacific at various locations. I do maintain all of these things though and exercise them at least monthly, sometimes disassembling whatever carburetors they use, soaking/cleaning them with lacquer thinner or acetone, and putting them back together. I also used to do this to the carburetors on Mercury and OMC outboards I owned, as well as soaking their gaskets in water to make them swell up, and then letting them dry before reassembly. The main thing with carburetors, of any make on any type of engine, is to keep them clean and gum free internally.

I do not adhere to the theory that everything made in china is junk. It depends upon who is having it built. If the outfit having it built, or doing the importing, is sloppy in their engineering, quality control, or standards then the product can indeed be junk, but otherwise just not so. There is a lot of junk and poor customer service produced right here in the good old USA.

[mgarblik]

I also found it interesting that the carburetor I bought for this snowblower was listed as a replacement for 3 HP-5.5 HP engines BOTH 2-cycle and 4-cycle. Same part number. You wouldn't think a carburetor without any mixture adjustment needle or idle mixture adjustment could run decent on that wide a variety of engines and maybe it wouldn't. My application was a 2-stroke, 50:1 4.5 HP engine. Probably just got lucky.

[stellar]

I've had good luck with them on string trimmers chain saws and motorcycles. Good luck with motorcycle coils too.

[Mill67]

Another success story. Put an $11.00 carb in my golf cart 3 years ago, still going strong.

[A.W.Dille]

I worked on a Murray lawn tractor for my neighbor. Local power equipment distributor wanted $163 for a new carburetor and$110 for a rebuild kit. Ordered a Chinese carburetor for it, less than $30. Fired right up and has run fine for the past couple of months. Neighbor is happy with it.

[chevymad]

I've bought a few. Still have 2 pieces of equipment that have been using them for a few years. No problems so far. I did notice that the carb I put on my husky pushmower was bigger bored then the original. Didn't seem to make any difference though.

[dataway]

Unless you have a name brand product the chinese carb is probable the exact same carb. made by the same people that manufactured your product in china to begin with. 99.9% of any OEM small gas engine carbs are made in china anyway. As are 99.9% of the rebuild kits and parts.
Look for stuff made in Taiwan, head and shoulders above chinese stuff.

[Dennis H.]

Biggest key to all small engines is to use non ethanol fuels in them. Since most small engines are only used occasionally, the more they sit with fuel that has ethanol in it, the more it will deteriorate anything flexible inside the motor like fuel lines, diaphragms, and orings, etc. I have many chain saws, weedeaters, mowers, leaf blowers that have been given to me that once I have repaired them with new fuel lines, chinese carburetors,and minor adjustments, they all run like new. I haven't bought a new small engine piece of equipment in years. I also use Stabil in my fuel to help keep it from deteriorating as well. The only problem with the cheap blowers, weed eaters, etc, is once you start losing compression, just throw them away, they are done, ain't worth the price of parts to fix.