What Causes a Gas Leaf Blower to Keep Stalling?

Leaf blowers are designed to provide a constant, powerful stream of air. While some use electric cords or batteries, the most mobile versions use small motors powered by gas to operate their fans. If your leaf blower uses gas and keeps stalling or shutting down altogether, you may have a problem with fuel, air intake or engine operation.

Flooding the Engine

If your stalling problem is accompanied by a smell of gas from the blower that was not there before, you may have flooded the engine with too much fuel, which can stall it. Flooding often keeps the engine from starting at all when you first start using the blower. Allow the engine to idle to clear out the extra gas until you can throttle it successfully.

Spark Plugs

Even a small engine like the one used on your blower still has spark plugs it uses to create sparks that ignite the air-fuel mixture pumped into your combustion chamber. If these spark plugs fail, your blower may suddenly refuse to accelerate at all or power may appear to fail altogether. Cleaning the spark plugs may solve this problem, but you may need to replace them entirely.

Fuel Lines

A kink in the fuel line of your blower can cause a sudden failure in operation, indicating a drastic drop in the fuel the engine can use. Repositioning the fuel line can remove the kink. If the fuel line is operating correctly, the problem may lie with a carburetor or compressor -- a serious problem that requires professional maintenance and repair.

Filter Problems

Your blower uses both an air and fuel filter to remove particles from the fuel mix that the blower takes in. If one of these filters becomes clogged with debris -- a common occurrence with blowers -- the fuel mixture will suffer. A lack of clean fuel or air can cause the blower to stall. Cleaning the engine and replacing the filters can fix this problem.