Experiences with Stihl BR400 blowers

[oldsaw-addict]

I'm wondering if anyone has or has had experience with the BR400 model backpack blowers, I've been running one thats rather hard to start lately and floods EVERY single time I shut the engine down, every time. then I spend about an hour trying to start it again, is this a common problem with this machine? the unit is pretty clean,  the fuel filter and air filter are clean and I cant figure what would cause the unit to do this. Its about 4-5 years old now, not used heavily in that timespan, just once or twice a month. This hard starting is a new thing, it used to be as reliable as the tides, now its as reliable as a car with no engine. runs fine, once you actually get it running though. please someone tell me what the -=-=-= is going on with this dumb thing.

Sorry for the long post, I'm not even sure this is in the right forum. moderators, you can move this as you see fit. I'm not a blower repairman so I need to learn this from someone that probably knows more than I do about them. Thanks for all your help in advance.