I have a gently used Husq push mower that won't crank. It is one of the new ones that does not have a manual choke or primer. Checked the throttle butterfly to make sure it was operating properly. Finally got it to crank with no air filter in place. It was in fairly rough shape so I purchased a new air filter. It still won't crank when the air filter is on it, take it off and fires right up. I'm stumped, anyone had this issue? TIA

You probably need to take the carb off, take it apart and thoroughly clean it and then reassemble. You could try adding some seafoam to the gas and letting it run for a little bit and see if that helps.

Sounds like maybe a clogged (or partially clogged) jet in the carb. With the air filter in place it isn't getting enough air through the jets to run, but without it lets enough through. Try cranking without the filter and spray some Sea Foam type cleaner in the carb while running. It will smoke and chug once it starts liquefying the gunk in the jets . Once it starts doing this, keep spraying until it dies. Let it sit 15mins or so and crank again and let it run until it quits smoking. Try it with the filter, again, to see if it will run. You may have to repeat the process and run a fairly heavy load of Sea Foam in the tank to finish cleaning the jets (as it runs through).

Thank y'all! Will give it a shout this afternoon!

and can purchase cheap knock off carbs on eBay pretty cheap. I’ve gotten to where I just replace instead of rebuild.

Me too !.

Take the bowl off and run a wire up in to the carb body. It’s gunked up. I have to do it every year. Be careful with the bowl gasket. It will leak like crazy.

Does it have a fuel filter. I would start there first.

Thanks y'all! A little Seafoam, or alot, and I got it running. Going only non-ethanol from here on out!

If you’ll use the bottled gas on your last tank of the year in the mower/blower/weedeater/chainsaw etc. you’ll never have that problem again. It’s expensive, about $20/Gallon, but it’s all I use in my 2 stroke engines. I recently used a chainsaw that hadn’t been ran in almost 2 years. Just a few pulls and it fired right up.