How to Easily Repair Power Equipment
First off, the obvious. Be sure to service your small engine machines, such as your lawn mowers chain saws trimmers, at least once a year, unless your are commercial lawn maintenance professional. That means change your spark plug, air filter, and oil. You shuld also get your lawn mower blade professional sharpened as well. It will keep your grass looking better and also less load on your engine.
Here are some reasons why your machine is probably not working. Most likely you had it sit in your garage all summer and if you are unlucky you probably forgot to drain the gas out of it and run the gas out of the carb. If you didn’t use any fuel preservatives then the fuel has gone bad, and it most likely has gunked up your carb.
Here are some tricks if your machine isnt running and you had it sit over the winter with fuel in it.
If your machine is a lawn mower, then locate where the carburator is, if you dont know its right under where your airfilter is. If you notice it will have a bowl underneath the carb and you will need your 1/2 inch wrench to drop the bowl. After you remove the bowl you will notice if it has dirt/debris/water or old gas in it. Make sure you drain the gas out of your machine before you do this or you might have a mess. Clean out the carb and the bowl with some carb cleaner that you can purchase at any auto parts store. Now if its really bad you might have to take your machine into a small engine mechanic so he can properly rod out the carb and possible replace some parts as old gas will just eat away some rubber on the needle etc.
If you have a 2 stroke machine such as a trimmer or blower, the best thing you can do is make sure you dont have ANY gas int he machine when you store it. When you are using it for the last time just run the gas completely out of it, run it until it dies. WHen gas sits in these small carbs, alot of the inner gaskets will get stiff and imovable and if this happens you will need the whole carb rebuilt.
If your machine has good fuel and the carbs look good, take out the spark plug and inspect it. Alot of people bring in their machines saying they dont run and often it is just as simple as changing the spark plug. If the plug looks clean and doesnt have any carbon build up on it, then it is probably ok.
Just remember to always have a clean airfilter, spark plug and fresh oil and gas and you will get the maximum life out of your machine and for heavens sake when you are done using it for an extended period of time, (over a month) then be sure to not let it sit with fuel in it, it will go bad and gunk up your machine.
If you have ANY questions regarding your small engines and need some help just send me a message I will be glad to help you the best I can. This whole blog is kind of jumbled together and its hard to explain some things, so If you have any questions just message me and I can work you through it.
Just figured its spring time and everyone wants to mow their lawn and I know some of you out there have probably have sore arms from trying to start their machines =) And no sexual innuendos intended
Fuel flow problems –
fuel flow problem. Most likely the engine is having trouble getting the proper amount of gas it needs to stay running. You most likely have carb problems. Some things you can do if you are good with a screw driver, however let me say this, if you arent sure you can put it back together don’t take it apart, there are many small parts in a 2 stroke carb.
If you want to rebuild a 2 stroke carb this is waht you need to do, completely take the carb off the machine, look at the carb and see if it says zama or walbro. then there should be some numbers and letters like k10 or c1u, look for some like that, then look up the rebuild kit online at walbros website or zamas and order the rebuild kit, you will need to take the carb apart and sclean it throuroughly, you will need to replace all the gaskets and small moving parts in the carb. install everyrthing back together and make sure you have like I said before, fresh a/f (or clean the one you have) and a goood spark plug, even tho it appears you are getting decent spark..
If you are unsure go to your local small engines shop and give them your model number and brand of your 2 stroke machine and they can probably look up the rebuild kit for you.
I strongly reccomend trying to do it yourself because it will cost you around 50 dollars to have it done by the mechanic, but if you are unsure AT ALL of your ability to do this, make sure you just pay the 50 dollars and have them do it.
Since this is a fuel related proble, most likely your diaphram and gasket went stiff and are no longer moving because of bad gas from sitting. Make sure after you remedy this problem that you never let your machine sit for a period of time with gas in it, drain out your fuel and run the machine dry if you arent going to use it for over 1 month.
Hey one other trick you should look for on 2 stroke machines like trimmers and blowers. They burn off alot more oil because of the mixture of oil and fuel obviously, but it can plug up an exhaust real fast and cause the machine to bog down.
What you need to do to check this, take a look at your muffler, often mufflers have screens right at the part where the gas is supposed to exit, it is usually held on by 3-4 small screws, take those off and check out the screen behind it, if that screen is plugged I would just throw it away, however if you want to keep it on there then get a torch and burn the carbon off of it, use some pliers to hold it. The screen acts as kind of like a small catalytic converter, it doesnt do much and I find it pretty annoying so I just throw them away.
If you have ALOT of carbon build up make sure you are running the right mixture of fuel and oil, sometimes using too much mixture can cause mufflers to get plugged up quick, and also the more oil you put in fuel makes your machine run hotter, I prefer to us a 50:1 ratio typically, but if you want 40:1 is ok, but 50:1 I think works best.
So check that screen and if its plugged I would recommend taking the whole muffler off and inspecting the exhaust port on the engine and make sure it isnt getting plugged up, when looking at it you can pull the rope and watch the piston move up and down so you can see how much of it is plugged by looking at the movement, sometimes that helps if there is little light. HOWEVER BE CAREFUL YOU DONT EVER WANT TO SCRATCH THE PISTON. If it seemes to be plugged, get something PLASTIC and pull the rope until the piston is top dead center so you wont knock any carbon into the cyllinder housing. Then try to knock some of that carbon loose with your plastic screwdriver or tool. Reinstall the muffler and away you go, one of the quickest ways to solve a power loss problem.
This also could be one of your problems if it is dying when you pull the trigger because it bogs down, hopefully this is the case and its not your carb.
