calamari
ArboristSite Operative
This site looked like my best chance to get an answer about my Homelite 330. I've owned it for over 30 relatively trouble free years and only had to replace the rubber intake tube a couple years ago for the first time. The saw cuts just great but working on it requires a Munchkins hands and a lot of patience.
In trying to start it the last time I flooded it pretty badly. Not the first time I've done that but after doing everything I've done in the past and could think of to dry it out and starting it (including days with the plug out and starting fluid) I started to think I may have a spark problem. I tried to check the spark but couldn't see anything. New plug, zip. I thought I'd check to make sure the coil was making good contact so I took the saw apart. Actually it took me so long to get the saw apart I got fed up and bought a new Makita EA 6100 because...I could. There'll be another post about that saw. Now I want to get Old Red back together and here's my question:
In checking the air gap I tried the usual recommendation of using a business card which approximates a .010" air gap. Actually it's .012" but... I find the air gap starts out at greater than .010" when I rotate the crank but when the front of magnet gets to the back of the coil pickup it's actually tighter. Does this ever tightening gap result in a point where the gap is optimal and at that point it fires the plugs and if so varying the taper on the gap should change the timing of the saw and could lead to rich/lean issues. OR, should it be uniform in its air gap and my saw is out of adjustment? There is no slop in the crank so it's not a wobble issue.
In trying to start it the last time I flooded it pretty badly. Not the first time I've done that but after doing everything I've done in the past and could think of to dry it out and starting it (including days with the plug out and starting fluid) I started to think I may have a spark problem. I tried to check the spark but couldn't see anything. New plug, zip. I thought I'd check to make sure the coil was making good contact so I took the saw apart. Actually it took me so long to get the saw apart I got fed up and bought a new Makita EA 6100 because...I could. There'll be another post about that saw. Now I want to get Old Red back together and here's my question:
In checking the air gap I tried the usual recommendation of using a business card which approximates a .010" air gap. Actually it's .012" but... I find the air gap starts out at greater than .010" when I rotate the crank but when the front of magnet gets to the back of the coil pickup it's actually tighter. Does this ever tightening gap result in a point where the gap is optimal and at that point it fires the plugs and if so varying the taper on the gap should change the timing of the saw and could lead to rich/lean issues. OR, should it be uniform in its air gap and my saw is out of adjustment? There is no slop in the crank so it's not a wobble issue.