04 Trailblazer 250 only barely idles, dies if gas touched?
 

Hi everyone! First post here.

I have an 04 Trailblazer 250 that I purchased used from the original owners.

It hadn't been used much and saw mostly garage duty. It's original down to the tires far as I know.

I replaced the plug and put fresh gas in (luckily it wasn't smelly), replaced the belt and rode it around for a summer without much issue.

Only problem it did have the whole time was that you couldn't ride it till it was warm; just had zero power and sputtered. Once warmed up, ran sweet!

Then towards the end of the summer it started having a bog now and then. Seemed like it was out of gas, but wasn't. And then the problem got worse... till now when it will only barely start.

I can get it to barely idle (very low) and then it'll die out. If I touch the gas at all it'll just die.

I pulled the carb, cleaned every passageway with carb cleaner and some guitar wire. No change.

Aside from buying a new carb to rule that out (though I really want to keep the OEM one and not buy aftermarket), what else could I check? Do these have fuel pumps? Something I'm missing here... :huh:

https://youtu.be/3QAbVGdEMoc

Compression check before you go any further. If you have at least 110psi+ then possibly crank seals especially the one behind the drive clutch. One thing you can try also is to pull the black wire from the reverse limiter and see if it helps.Item#27

Thanks for the quick reply. I'll do a compression test, though it sure feels good when I pull it!

Are the crank seals common? I guess this machine is over 12 years old now so anything could have dried out.

I'll also try yanking that wire. Where is this located? I can't quite tell the area from the diagram.

Cracked,leaking crank seals,especially the one behind the drive clutch, are a common problem as machines age or sitting up like a lot do, sometimes with a crank case full of gas. Leaking seals won't allow the gas/air/oil mixture to fully compress in the crank case and shoot up the transfer ports for ignition. On the limiter just pop the front plastic panel and it should be below the cdi and coil depending on model. Only small module on the left side(as you're facing the front) with a black wire.