Kawasaki TH23 Idle problem.

[Chappers]

Hi all, 

 

Ive recently purchased a 20 yr old Kawasaki TH23 hedge cutter to use for very light work. It starts and runs fine but won’t idle without choke. 
 

I can’t seem to find any obvious adjustment on the carb to rectify this. 
 

I’ll take and upload some pictures of it shortly.
Would appreciate any help anyone can give.

many thanks 

Chris 

[aswales]

Probably a blockage in one of the tiny holes in the carburettor, will need a strip down and clean....is there a make and model number of carburettor ?

 

[Trailoftears]

They-I think, had spark arrestors in the exhaust.If so,quite plausible that its pretty much choked/carboned up on an old machine like that?

[pleasant]

2 hours ago, Trailoftears said:

They-I think, had spark arrestors in the exhaust.If so,quite plausible that its pretty much choked/carboned up on an old machine like that?

Unlikely as it's stated it will only run with the choke applied, which suggests lean rather than rich which would be a carbonated muffler or arrestor.

 

Needing the choke fully or partially applied indicates it is scavenging for fuel and adding choke is artificially richening the fuel to air ratio. it is a carb issue and carb on these are notorious if they have been left with fuel in the system for any length of time. There is also limited adjustment...if any mix adjustment at all. That said, they are easy carbs to remove and work on, although a chinese pattern carb will be just as easy to cure the problem.

[Trailoftears]

7 minutes ago, pleasant said:

Unlikely as it's stated it will only run with the choke applied, which suggests lean rather than rich which would be a carbonated muffler or arrestor.

 

Needing the choke fully or partially applied indicates it is scavenging for fuel and adding choke is artificially richening the fuel to air ratio. it is a carb issue and carb on these are notorious if they have been left with fuel in the system for any length of time. There is also limited adjustment...if any mix adjustment at all. That said, they are easy carbs to remove and work on, although a chinese pattern carb will be just as easy to cure the problem.

Ah,I bow to your superior knowledge here,but remember being perplexed/pissed off with poor running issues on fairly new ones,and then having done the obvious checking of the air filter, assuming It was then a carb tuning issue (which it wasn't),One of those mysterious 'I can do without this hassle' issues.I can understand the hate, whether it is (or isn't) an issue,that now the e10 ptrol introduces to troubleshooting issues.

[pleasant]

New machines are set to run very lean to adhere to the latest 'euro emission' rules. Most manufacturers deliberately err on the side of caution and set their machines up on the production line so they run so lean that they barely run at all. They do this, so if they are spot checked by the relevant authorities to ensure they are complying with emissions then they know they will definitely pass.

 

Part of our PDI criteria is to set them up to run properly AFTER a customer has placed an order. Once a machine has been purchased then euro compliancy is null and void you see, so you can over ride carb settings. This is why a load of online purchase stuff doesn't run well out the box as no one has done any carb adjustments. Buy from a dealer and they would have already run the machine up once ready for collection. Worth remembering that.