GardenKit

Last job of the day was a 361 not pumping oil. it came in a the beginning of the week and a quick look showed the normal problem. The needle bearing had broken up but not been noticed, resulting in the drum tipping, taking out the clutch retaining clips and the oil pump drive and pump. Ordered up all the bits and fitted them this afternoon, ran it up and... no oil. Took the bits off again and this time had a proper look. The metal fragment from the broken clutch clips had also ground away the crankcase, exposing the oilway between the pump and the bar hole. I should have seen it the first time, how I missed I will never know. Anyway, I think I can mend it with a bit of 3/16 kunifer bonded in. Otherwise it is a new crankcase half. Job for the morning. You can see the hole where I have shoved a red straw down it. and in the second pick I have pushed the kunifer in to see if it fits.

I had better apologise to the moderators, my post was deleted. Sorry guys it will not happen again.

Over the years I have had several Kawaski brushcutters come in that appeared to be siezed solid. In fact they have had broken flywheel fins which have then jammed the flywheel against the HT coil. The reason on every one has been a bit of gravel that has got in from a rather large aperture behind the tank, probably when the machine has been put down on a gravel path. Maybe its just been coincidence that they have all been Kawasaki. When I said to the owner of the last one 'that will be a bit of gravel' he did not believe me as nowhere in his garden does he have gravel. So I stripped it whilst he was with me and, sure enough, there was the gravel. He was baffled and would not have believed me had he not seen it. So he went home on a gravel hunt. Turns out he hangs it on his garage wall and the surface of the concrete is crumbling. There was a little pile of gravel on the floor under the hanging point.

When I sell a saw I always show how to start it, stop it and use the chainbrake. I only ever apply from around half revs, any more is unnecessary. If it works at half revs, it WILL work at full revs, but it does apply a lot of shock load to the crank and clutch which I do not think would be good for the saw long term. Domestic users just do not seem to get their head around the chainbrake though and need showing several times.

Let's face it. although there may be exceptions, you will not generally get much for £1000. If buying from a quality dealer the machine will have been overhauled and sold with a warranty, in which case will have had, on average £300-£400 of work done to it from its trade in state, but will still be an old (or small) machine for that money. If sold 'as seen' either from a dealer or from a private seller, be prepared to spend on it. There are many other options other than the ones mentioned though. Ones worth a look are JD and Stiga. Old Hondas are good, the newer ones only average. Watch out for rust under the decks of many models, especially Westwood and Countax. MTD Lawnflite models can be very costly on spares. With only £1000 to spend it will easy to buy rubbish, but very difficult to find a sound buy. Most 42" machines should be able to cope with an acre an hour, so your 10-15 hrs a week will equate to a lot of work.

Such are the joys of our chosen career path Ray.

Haha, just like a Seagull then H-A ( but not the hypoid bit)

The thing is, Gary, that ethanol is already the norm for us in the UK. Since March 2013 the Government have deemed us to be on E10 as opposed to E5 as it was previously. They have however deferred making E10 compulsory for another 3years due to the high numbers of older vehicles that are not E10 compliant. Many of them will be off the road by 2016 and the rest will cease to matter. The oil comanies have little to gain, and much to lose by increasing the ethanol content at present so are happy to stay at E5 for now. But yes, Eddy will be happy to see increased Aspen sales, as will I. Maybe, just maybe, increased volume may result in lower prices, or at least, lower price increases.

But with ethanol there is no winner. Its not as good as the petrol it replaces.

To be fair to your dealer he is probably as frustrated about it as you are. He. Would love to keep his promise and wants your money in his bank. If its a Jap truck it will have had a long journey.

:biggrin:Best try it in someone elses saws then:lol:

Having read the reports that TCD posted about effects of high ethanol, I can't see why you would contemplate sticking it in your kit, even if you could get it here. It only decreases performance, so whats the point?

Sure, apparently Briggs have revamped their stabiliser and its now better than it was. I'm not sure how it negates the impact of ethanol, but it extends the storage life by adding anti-oxidants and slowing down the chemical reaction. For anyone not wishing to take the Aspen route, then using the additive is a sensible move.

Good find TCD. Interesting reading.

I am guessing its down to larger filters in the system. We all know that filters need changing on cars. We assume that it is crud and water that blocks them, maybe some of it is dissolved polymer. The motor industry is having to develop new materials for fuel systems because of ethanol, and vintage vehicles are suffering. I have a vintage motorcycle club buying Aspen 4 for their bikes as apparently the ethanol in modern petrol eats away their metal fuel tanks very quickly.

You training to be a dealer???

But he only wants a ring, Richard:biggrin:

To be fair to established manufacturers such as Stihl, they have been aware of the ethanol issue for some time and have tried, with some success to engineer materials that have more resistance to the solvents in petrol. The older machines such as the 039 I owned a while ago had an older type of plastic which dissolved more readily. I often find the gauze filter of these to be blocked with a pure white residue which recombines to form a semi solid mass. I think I posted a pic of this around a year ago in my 'one reason I use aspen' thread. But despite the best efforts of the chemists it seems that the ethanol still has some effect even on modern plastics.

Its probably not the case here, but worth noting anyway. There are some chinese fuel filters that have been attacked quite quickly from the ethanol in petrol. The engineers at Mitox UK identified this problem as some machines were exhibiting erratic running. Sometimes they were OK and sometimes not. It turned out that the 'flock' in the tank filter was breaking down and getting trapped on the mixture screw seats causing issues. Retuning the carb would release the blockage for a while but then it would return. It was too small to see in the carb, but could sometimes be seen making its way along the fuel line. Ethanol is a killer to fuel systems and some materials are less tolerant than others and many 'after market' filters are of chines origin. The Mitox ones have been altered in their composition to resist the ethanol.

Its difficult to change from what you are used to using. We use QB and have been very happy with it. We did upgrade a few years ago, but only because the old version would not handle the VAT change, given the thousands of " items" we have. We have it on a laptop which never connects to the web, so there should be no reason to change (we hope) Will be interested in the replies here though.

Bicton run the CS30 alone for £395 at present Beau, I guess the 31 would be similar. We keep up to date with the cost as we advise every non-pro saw purchaser to get themselves trained. Very few do though.

I find that brussells play havoc with my emissions too, especially on Boxing Day.

I used to sell tractors. Zetors are always a good bet, they are cheap to run and take any amount of stick, but some of the bits like clutch and brake cylinders were a little low in quality, as were some of the electrics. The old dry brakes were also a bit hit and miss. I also sold Renault. If I were in your position I would be looking for an old (90's) 90-34 either MX or TX.

Just like everything in life, the 80/20 rule applies here. Its probably true that 80% of the conflict and bullying comes from 20% of the posters. And as probably only 20% of the members account for 80% of the posting then the number of 'bad eggs' are actually quite small. So if 80% of the bad ones can change their ways then we need only lose a few from the forum. It is important though that all we keep the ability to jest with others.

By the way, wecome to the forum toolnut.