What's on your bench today?

[spudulike]

Yet another busy weekend, had an MS200T go wobbly after a repair on a badly fitted fuel tank - the clutch springs had failed, then the recoil pull went, got these fixed, the saw wouldn't idle, all over the place so did the acelerator pump fix, it was worn but still no joy. Soaked the carb in th eUS cleaner and bingo - back up and running sweetly.

 

Tached up an 020T that will hopefully go out soon as interest has been shown.

 

Tached up the ported 357XPG, the saw has heated handles - nice in this weather.

 

Been stripping a Jonsered 2165 for the crank and flywheel as I know someone who wants them - many parts will fit the 372/365 so PM me if you are looking for anything.

 

Burrell came round, sorted the muffler on his blower, tuned his MS200T and sorted the carb on his 046 - a long term headache!

 

Oh - lastly, you may have heard of the wifes Christmas present - a Pie Maker - makes a damn lovely pie:thumbup:

[Eddy_t]

No potatoes and gravy?

[spudulike]

No potatoes and gravy?

 

Funny, thats what the wife said but I was in a hurry to get the photo done - it had mash and gravy as well as the green stuff - veg I think they call it:lol:

[Eddy_t]

I thought green stuff was called brash? And doesn't it go on the fire or through the chipper?!

[Rich2484]

Isn't aspen suppose to be green as its enviro friendly........

[GardenKit]

You called?

[spudulike]

You called?

 

Oh bugger, I thought we had mentioned Axxxn and got away with it:001_rolleyes:

[GardenKit]

No chance!

[Rich2484]

:lol::lol:

 

Now com on spud just when I though you were moving to the green side.

 

But then the A word is taboo.

[mikerecike]

You can test the coil with a multimeter set to Ohms. There are 2 coils within the module.

The Primary coil which has only a few windings should have a low resistance, probably around .7Kohm (general figure, but coils do vary) and is tested between the little connector that the kill wire fits to, and the main body.

The Secondary coil has very many windings of fine insulated wire and should (general figures again) read around 7-10Kohms between the spark plug terminal and the main body.

 

Figures well outside of these could well indicate a duff coil, but I have had many coils with good readings that still wont produce a strong enough spark, so I seldom use a resistance test.

 

I prefer to use a spark tester. many cheap testers just test for a spark, but cannot test for a good spark. An ordinary spark plug can be used in its std form, but unless the coil is very weak it will show a spark. If you open the gap really wide, or even remove the tag it will make it much more difficult for the coil to make a spark, so if one can jump a big gap it must be quite good.

 

Or you can use a fancy tester such as the one below.

 

Coils can produce a spark when cold, but fail when hot. If testing resistance you can do it hot and cold for comparison. A failing coil can also upset timing, causing all sorts of weird symptoms

[ATTACH]110402[/ATTACH]

 

[ATTACH]110403[/ATTACH]

 

 

Thanks Barrie

 

I'm sort of sensing that the numbers on meters are irrelevant - what counts is whether there's a decent spark or not? I'm imagining that it's not about diagnosing a coil because even if you know somethings wrong they're not end-user repairable? Although I do recoil somebody once flashing a 'black box' at me and saying it was a dedicated coil tester?

 

I've bought one of the briggs spark testers that has a window like the Zat 3 but I don't think you can adjust the spark gap as you mention- hasn't arrived yet- I'm guessing that Zat tool cost a few bob?

 

Think I may also try removing a spark plug tang and see how useful that is as a spark tester.

 

 

Any other DIY testers around?

 

Anybody know a UK supplier of these Mcculloch coils new? Plenty to be shipped from USA but have been stung with 'duties' before.

cheers folks