On Wed, 19 May 2010 07:47:46 -0700, jamesgangnc wrote:
Plug's don't go "bad" all that easily.

Yeah, I agree there (well, apart from the stray apostrophe

But I won't argue that these motors are not for everyone.

The main issue I think is that it doesn't take much for them to go from
working to dead - bigger IC engines tend to degrade gradually, but the
smaller ones can work one day and be utterly dead the next.

You have a carb problem. Debris or water has gotten into it. Something
is clogged or stuck.

I agree that's the most likely. It still sounds odd that there's no
gasket between carb and engine.

Oh, one thing I heard recently was that some Ryobi engines have just a
plastic crankcase cover, and the screws that hold it down work loose -
it's the crankcase pressure which drives the carb's fuel pump, so once
the crankcase seal goes bad the pump in the carb stops operating
properly. Not necessarily relevant in this case, but it's something to
keep in mind when working on the small Ryobi stuff.

cheers

Jules