Plugged Blower Carburetor

Since this posting has elicited zero replies, I thought I would try to resurrect it with a tiny bit of additional information -and I mean a tiny bit of additional information.

Turns out that this isn't a Craftsman blower, it's a Ryobi blower - not that this is much additional help for folks. The part I don't understand is that the carburetor is almost certainly not plugged, but something is preventing the primer bulb from being able to push gas from the fuel tank through the carburetor. I think the problem is a mechanical problem with the carburetor where something in the little tiny mechanics of the carburetor inlet system is all of a sudden blocking the fuel flow.

It looks as though I could purchase a replacement carburetor for $45, but I've got to believe that there's almost nothing really wrong with this thing - that some little mini-fix wouldn't take care of. Any thoughts from anyone?

This posting has been noteworthy in its one-sidedness (replies mostly from myself), but I thought I would add to it a little further, and probably effectively close it out.

Since I wasn't able to elicit a viable solution to clear what I think is a plugged carburetor, I decided to pursue just purchasing a replacement carburetor altogether. I opted to go through eReplacementparts (www.ereplacementparts.com) for a replacement carburetor, and that proved to be a fairly easy and cost-effective solution. The new carburetor, plus shipping, came to $29, and needless to say, purchasing a brand new blower would have cost somewhat more than that.

Replacing the new carburetor involved removing three screws and reconnecting the fuel lines - and took about ten minutes, and the blower fired up on the very first try at starting it. With that success under my belt, I decided to replace the carburetor on a string trimmer, which had a similar problem and had not worked in more than seven years, and that replacement was also successful. So, my recommendation is that if you have this type of problem, where a gasoline fueled device won't seem to start - summon your courage and your wallet and just take the (small) risk and try swapping out the carburetor. That's probably going to solve the problem and is a relatively easy fix.