Weed Eater Woes And How To Repair Them
New relationship woes
So you go out and finally spend the dough on a weed whacker and after figuring out how to assemble it, you fuel it up, after doing a short chem lab on fuel mixing, and then you move briskly into the aerobics section of your lawn care day. Warm up with several thumb pushes on that little clear plastic bulb. hmmm it says 7 times, I wonder if 14 would be even better?
After straining several newly discovered arm muscles and inventing an entirely new vocabulary revolving around lawn equipment and its parentage, you realize that you haven't choked the machine properly-not that the thought hadn't crossed your mind.
Anyway you finally get the thing started and learned how to use it and you enjoy a pretty pleasant season with it. Things seem well between you and the weed eater.
Woes to come
After the first season things start to fall apart. The little buzzard won't start or when it does it sputters and coughs along only on half choke. Why? Is this revenge for a winter of neglect? The answer is yes. As it turns out the fuel mixture for these two cycle engines leave a resedue behind when they evaporate and this residue clogs the screens and other parts of the carburetor. This is why your wonderful weed eater may not operate very well even after only one season.
When this happened to me I began researching the cause and what to do. Ye gads, there was advice from rebuilding the engine and carburetor to just buying a new weed eater. None of these option seemed very thrilling. Many weed eaters use proprietary parts and tools to work on them and if you want to do it yourself it requires cutting and grinding away at your weed whacker with a Dremel tool.
The easy fix
The other day I was surfing the net when I came across a web site dedicated to the uses of WD-40 and one of them said it could unclog carburetors. I jumped at the chance for an easy fix and I took off the cap to the air filter-which turned out to be nothing but a sponge. Then I filled the carburetor with WD-40 and let it sit for an hour. Wow, my baby was purring like she was brand new. It was amazing. Now this easy fix will not work if you have cracked fuel lines or mechanical problems, but if your weed whacker is only a year or two old and it has begun to run slower and slower for no apparent reason give my WD-40 cure a try. What can it hurt. Well, I got go now and whack some more weeds.
Links
- Weedeater Troubleshooting & Repair
Free information, tips, images, on how to repair,troubleshoot, most weedeater problems yourself, saving time and money - weed whacker won\'t start [Archive] - DoItYourself.com Community Forums
[Archive] weed whacker won't start Outdoor Power Equipment and Small Engines - How to Repair a Weed Whacker’s Broken Fuel Line | eHow.com
How to Repair a Weed Whacker’s Broken Fuel Line. It is time for you to cut and edge your lawn. First, you go to your shed and take out your weed whacker. You try to start it, but nothing happens. You try to start it again, but once again,...
Comments
Thanks for the WD-40 tip. It worked great on mine, smokes like crazy for the first minute or so but after that, it's all good. Thanks again.
How do you repair the e-z link connection when the motor runs good?
- AUTHOR
It is a Royobi which requires proprietary tools to work on. I think they do this so you will have to send it to them to get fixed. My WD-40 fix worked all last season. I haven't fired it up yet for this season.
This fix only works if your problem is caused by old fuel clogging your carburetor with gunk. It doesn't work if the problem is a cracked fuel line or some other cause.
Best Of Luck
CW
Just curious what brand is your weedeater? How has worked so far?
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