Homelite Super 2 Starting Issues

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TheCrunge

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Hi everyone, hoping someone here can help me, I'm about at the end of my rope with this one.

I have a magnesium bodied Homelite Super 2 my dad bought my grandfather some years ago. It was used for many years but was nicely taken care of. I've been using it the past ten years or so with no issues. About six months ago, I went to start it after it had been sitting a while with mix made of ethanol gas in it and the trouble started. It would kick once on the first pull, then wouldn't do anything until it had sat overnight. The next day, it would kick once and the process would repeat. At this point I set about cleaning it, took the engine out of the case, sprayed carb cleaner into the carb, but didn't take the carb off. After a few days of playing with it, it one day fired right up like nothing had ever happened and ran great. I would start it once a month and there were no issues.

Fast forward to two weeks ago. I pulled it out and it as back to the same symptoms of kicking once, then refusing to do anything else. At this point I decided it was time to rebuild the carb and purchased a Walbro HDC rebuild kit. After pulling the carb, cleaning it, and replacing the parts in the kit, I reinstalled it and at this point it wouldn't even fire once. After a few days of playing, I realized it was leaking too much gas out of the carb and must be flooding. Last night I took the carb off again adjusted the metering level to be even with the body of the carb. I reinstalled all and the saw kicked over and ran at very high idle until it died after about 10 seconds. It would kick for a second and two and die after subsequent pulls.

That brings me to now. Everytime I take the carb off and drain the whole system, the saw fires for a few seconds, only to die and never restart. Even with the lever adjusted, it still seems like its leaking a ton of gas. I'm about at my whits end with this saw and its symptoms are really bothering me. I must have taken the engine out of the case fifteen times to date.

Other things that I've done included changing the ignition module even though spark appears strong and blue, plus the saw does start sometimes. I've changed the plug to a new NGK plug gapped to .025". I've inspected the piston and cylinder through the muffler and there doesn't appear to be any scoring. The compression on the saw seems strong, although I admittedly don't have a compression tester.

Anyone have any advice or suggestions? I'd really like to get this saw running and it's really driving me crazy trying to get it to run. I apologize for the book here, just trying to be thorough with what's going on. I appreciate the help in advance.
 
The needle and or seat is leaking fuel past it, if the metering diaphragm is set correctly and all the gaskets are installed in the correct order then the seat may be rough or has crud stuck to it.
 
Just went through something similar with an HDC, check your metering diaphram and make sure the center button is the same height as the old one, not like the one pictured here on the right. It will guarantee flooding if it is.

DSCF4132 (Large).jpg
 
First, the plug seems to be getting wet, yes. Second, I will have to check the height of the button when I get home. I kit I bought was admittedly not OEM, so there is potential the metering diaphrams are different. However I was basically having the same issue before the rebuild as well although I'm sure its possible that something was clogging something else up and I simply have a different but similar issue now.

I've gotten kind of fed up with this saw and spent the past few nights soaking the carb in lemon juice then some diluted Purple Power. I definitely wouldn't recommend the Purple Power as it quickly oxidized the aluminum. I'm going to put the carb back together tonight and see if I have any luck with this.
 
Pioneer, I definitely owe you a beer for diagnosing this extremely random occurrence. It turns out the two metering diaphragms did have different buttons on them, exactly like yours. I adjusted the metering lever to be lower than normal and the saw is firing right up. Now I need to adjust the carb tuning and I should be good to go. Thank you so much for your help with this. I'm not sure I ever would have figured that out on my own.
 
Glad to save you some grief. I had my carb apart 4 times before I noticed the difference. I filed the button down on the new one to match the height of the old, if your fix doesn't work properly, try that.
 
Yeah I was into time number six on this guy. I've got it running now, but may try filing things down to give some headroom on the lever adjustment. Right now i have it down as far as it can possible go and still open and close properly. Appreciate the help.
 

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