Maybe you got a bad one Dave.
I looked at them in great detail on the shelf at my local Tec dealer.
The quality of the casting is so much better that I will spend the extra to buy new ones.
Johny:
I know they have an American part number for reference.
There is always the possibility you end up with an actual carb, but Tecumseh went bankrupt.
The name, the trademark, all the technical information and tooling went to China.
If you see " Snow King " on anything now you can be sure its Chinese.
Liquid Combustion Technology owns all the rights and tooling, that is why so many of the obvious Tecumseh like features on the current Chinese snow blowers look so familiar ( the primer bulb is a dead give away ).
AS for NOS and engines, Certified parts Inc bought all the US engines and parts all the holding not tooling or non intellectual material is owned by that company.
They may be assembling engines from parts ( not sure if this is legal ) for resale.
Some Info.
http://www.tecumsehpower.com/comet/index.html
LPMain