pleasant

That is correct.....bprm7a is a short reach plug. Unless that photo is deceiving that plug looks like a long reach. However...I am sure the OP would have said he has just changed the plug and now it doesnt pull over.....surely????

A long reach plug where it should be a short reach? A 'blockage' in the exhaust or intake wouldn't cause those symptoms. If it pulls over perfectly well with no plug in- if it were a hydrostatic lock, then all excess fuel mix would be expelled whilst pulling it over with no plug fitted, so you can discount that. Unless you have a stuck metering valve in the carb and its simply filling the bore with unburnt fuel, and it is filling up so quickly that it is nearly full by the time you have refitted the plug. Do you get shed loads of fuel mix flying out the exhaust port and the plug hole when you pull it over?

They corrode if left with grass build up. If cleaned immediately after use they will last pretty much forever. We have harriers that have been looked after coming in for annual service still from the early 80s. Honda polymer decks are generally good, but do become brittle with age due to exposure to uv light

....and buy a spares 400 quid gearbox for it, as thats models achilles heel is drive failure on the roller models. Notoriously difficult and expensive to repair. You want a mower to last 50 years with little to go wrong and build like a barn dood.....find a decent used Hayterette. Ok he will have to push it and rake up the cuttings, but only mower i have ever dealt with that i guarantee will last that long....even when abused

...and in future pretty much zero resale value of battery stuff. Unlike petrol. Ok, I accept once it written down most companies aren't interested about selling used stuff on as it owes them nothing, but for sole traders, man in a van type guys, being able to make some money on your used kit if you have upgraded, or indeed, on the flip side being able to purchase a good used bit of kit given the price of the stuff new is very appealing if there's a healthy supply on the used market......but just a quick search through 'the bay' tells you pro used battery stuff ain't selling. Why would you risk spending several hundred quid on a used pro spec battery saw, when there's no telling if the battery will last a day, a week or a fortnight and it cost more than you paid for the machine to replace it. Peoples confidence in used battery stuff starts at time of purchase. They say to me 'As long as the battery will last me three years or so that's fine' I am getting a lot of people with two, three, four year old stuff and they absolutely accept 'the battery is probably on its way out' so they are already resigned to the fact it's probably scrap. They expect them to fail......I cannot remember the same being said to me over petrol stuff. Ever.

Agree with both above. Ironically 'the best of both worlds' is actually corded electric.....lighter than both petrol and battery. Will run as long as petrol, more powerful than battery, virtually zero maintenance, with total reliability- it will either work or it won't- no halfway house like petrol. Cheaper to purchase than both petrol or battery. Only downside is your power source and attachment to it thereof.

........we have probably a dozen on our books that are still in annual use for the weekend warriors.

As with a lot of model specific 028 stuff it's obsolete now. Part number you need is: 1118 021 1104 You won't probably find a new one, but used shouldn't be an issue. If you get the chance of a chainbrake band at a low price, then get one of those as a spare. The 028 had a habit of snapping them, and they have been obsolete for a long time now.

That reminds me of tommy cooper. 'Doctor.....it hurst when I do that' 'Well don't do that then' 'Doctor I've broken my leg in two places' 'Well, don"t go to those places then'

Yes....think of a Vauxhall Nova with an exhaust with an outlet the diameter of a baked bean can.

Mk1 3-doors are worth quite a lot now...especially with the side by side rear seat option in the boot space

Fuel supply issue. Those loncin Honda copy engines are notorious suceptical to fuel issues (just like the genuine Hondas) You stated in the quote above 'not been used for sometime' & 'emptied the fuel' That tells me you have left fuel in it for 'sometime' particularly inside the guts of the carb. I know you said it looked like new, was clean etc, but with the naked eye nowadays you simply won't see anything obvious that can cause a blockage. When you turn on your saw, the governor kicks in and the carb should draw more fuel to richen it up so it doesn't stall. It very quickly draws on what little fuel is available which is why it is difficult to re-start until effectively it has re-filled. Obviously what little is in 'reserve' inside the carb is not enough to overide the extra demand from the load applied. New carbs for that engine are only £20 or so....wouldn't mess about trying to clean it unless you have time on your hands- and even then there's no guarantee it will work. Remember next time you need to lay it up, leave it to completely run dry of fuel until it cuts out, and then to be sure drain the float bowl and re-fit. Start with fresh fuel when you want to re-use it.

They currently use Stihl red 2t oil.........I think they run it on the rich side and don't run the engine flat out as often as they should. They tend to use it in quite compact areas so blip the throttle on and off around sensitive cut areas. Deffo not 4-stroke engine oil tho. In the end it was so bad it would only start and then only idle....really badly

I think ADW was pretty close with a clogged muffler/spark arrestor, but as Spud specifically said 'blocked exhaust port' then he takes the gold house point. Well done. Don't see this often so much with modern fuel/oil mix as I used to, and haven't seen one as bad as this ...ever. See if you can spot the piston skirt in the first pic.....you can just make it out if you zoom in. No tricks of the light or shadows anything- that first pic is genuinely how carboned up the exhaust port was. The escape route for the gasses was less than the diameter of a biro tip. Second pic is taken at exactly the same angle, and shows how it should look once we did a clean up. My recommendation was to check the oil/fuel ratio and to ditch the Stihl Red they were using, and upgrade to the low carbon HP Super.

Nearly there ADW.........I was going to give you the house point, but not exact enough for one of those!

Nope...it's stock as it left the factory.

Nope

Nope

Interesting one today....don't see many with the cause of this issue. I will let you all have a go at diagnosing what the problem was in due course.........I have friends over this eve so will be dipping in and out when I can. A gold house point for the first correct answer. Here we go: It's a Stihl FS360C Cow-Handled brush cutter/clearing saw. Not overly old, but get a fair bit of use in a farm environment, so not 8 hours a day 5 days a week like the council, but more use than I would give it in my garden. Customer wants us to service it and take a look at an issue it currently has which has got worse. It will start fairly easily, but will not rev up. It feels like it's holding back, with excess smoke via the muffler. Has been used this season- started season fine with no obvious issues. Been used a lot over the last few weeks to do the verges etc around the farm. Slowly started to struggle to rev up. Got out to use again this week and now still starts but revs so low it's unusable. Initial checks show compression is very good, new spark plug, fuel filter and paper air filter all fitted as part of our service, but made no difference. Air filter was fuel mix contaminated, although being a paper element we would have changed that anyway. Over to you guys........

Here you go: Richard1234's comment- done the same as what we do

Don't tend to start very well like that though. 😉

You will get through a dozen of those one after the other once that's happened, and that recoil unit will never be reliable again. It's an inherent fault...so much so that as from this year Stihl had dropped that soft start system on their blowers. They started playing up about 3 years ago...don't know why, but we fitted new springs and shortly after they failed again. We no longer repair the recoil units, we simply buy a complete assembly and bolt it on....cost a bit more to start with but cheaper in the long run OR you could just replace it with the non soft start version. Don't bother fitting a new spring it WILL go again very shortly

Is that some sort of gay icon?

If your preferences are scoring or muffler and plug fouling and excess smoke then yup....fill your boots. Oils particulary modern oils are designed to be diluted at one specific ratio for best protection and performance. That is why it is only the generic supermarket brand oil...the ones who give no clear definite ratio, or who put 'mix it to what your handbook states' are the ones I see on a monday morning. Oil is cheap engines and repairs arent

'Semi-Synthetic 2 stroke engine oil suitable for mixing at 40:1 or 50:1 ratios' ...oh dear....I would avboid that like the plague with that written on it. Tells me they don't know what the correct dilution ratio for the best protection is. Modern oils should have one ONE dilution ratio on the bottle....the CORRECT one for the oil in the bottle...not one open to interpretation.