Lawn Mower Carb - blocked fuel intake?

The float valve is stuck. The carburetor needs to be cleaned. Take it apart and soak it in a good cleaner. Put it back together with a rebuild kit.

A carb is easy to rebuild. Be sure to have a note book to write down notes about things like how far out to turn the Hi Lo needles. counting, Turn them all the way in until they stop, write this down. It should be somewhere around 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 turns each, but may be more. When you remove cleaning and reinstalling them, you can reset them by turning them all the way in, and backing out the number of turns you wrote down for each.

Take the carb apart, paying attention to how you do it. Blow air through all the passages. If one is blocked, run a needle or small wire through it. Then blow air through it.

Reassemble the same way you took it apart.

The float might be stuck in one position instead of floating freely. At this point get yourself a carb rebuilding kit and a fresh can of carb cleaner. In less then one hour of cleaning, and gasket replacing that carb should be acting like new.

Secondly, unlikely but never the less, check for a shut off valve on the gas line to the carb.

Remove the carb bowl. Inside you will find a float attached to the needle. Old gas has turned to varnish and must be cleaned off the needle so that it moves freely. Good luck.

My Troy bilt has a Honda motor and it fires right up. Get a can of ether and squirt a shot in the air cleaner then pull the starter rope. I had a tecumseh engine on my last mower and needed ether to start it every time .