Many of us keep them wet year-round.
I ran one dry last fall. We’ll see how that turns out when I run it soon. Another personal experiment.
I ran one dry last fall. We’ll see how that turns out when I run it soon. Another personal experiment.
Chinese Carb to Fit Echo CS-590?
- Thread starter Paul Bunions
- Start date
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If you didn’t live so far away, I’d pay for lessons. After 50 years of working with saws, I actually know very little about working on them. When I started working with my Dad, we always had back up saws. If one died, you put it in Dad’s truck and grabbed another. He would drop it off at the saw shop on the way home. Like magic, a couple days later it would come back like new. I can’t get ethanol free gas near me. I can get it by my farm in WV, but it’s a full dollar more per gallon. They say if you switch to non ethanol you need to retune for it. I hate tuning saws.
Reset the mixture screw as well, I bet goofs that wirked on it messed them up. On tge 590 the H will be like one turn out maybe less, the L 1.5 turns out from lightly seated.
Paul Bunions
ArboristSite Member
I appreciate you looking that up, but it says "untested." I already have one spare that doesn't work.
Paul Bunions
ArboristSite Member
I made a little booboo. I have two saws that don't work, and I got them confused. I said the spark plug in the Echo was okay, but it wasn't. It was dark and oily. I put in a new one, and it made no difference at all. Not even a hint of a start.
The tip of the old plug looks kind of tan and powdery, but the rest is black.
The tip of the old plug looks kind of tan and powdery, but the rest is black.
You have to hold the throttle wide open
With the choke off
And crank the guts out of it.
Don't matter what kind of saw
Any carb saw that floods
Has to have the residual fuel burned out of it.
Can you check compression?
Paul Bunions
ArboristSite Member
I have a cable tie permanently attached to the handle so I can slip it over the trigger and do as you suggested.
It looks like I made a second booboo. I forgot to gap the new Echo plug. The saw is running now, but I am wondering how long it will last, since it looks like it fouled the first plug.
The other saw (Jonsered) has a brand-new Chinese carb in it. A Zama clone. It started and ran, but getting it adjusted is tough. Tried the online directions for Zama carbs.
At first, it would only run at high speed. I fiddled with the idle speed screw, and I got it to idle. It was idling too fast. The chain moved sometimes. I did what the directions said, closing the L and H screws and then backing them out 2 full turns. Now the saw will not start. Bummer. It's too hot out there to keep fooling with it today.
One of the most annoying things about chainsaw repair directions is that they always start with, "Start the saw and run normally for several minutes." Hello? If it ran, why would I need to repair it?
Some day I'm going to market a saw with a fitting on the shaft so you can crank it with a cordless drill.
The original Zama is in an ultrasonic cleaner right now with Simple Green, also known as Earth-Crunchy Scam Fluid. The metering diaphragm doesn't seem to be completely flexible. I have a new one on the way.
The Jonsered is a pill to work on. The Echo's carb comes out in 30 seconds. The Jonsered is a time-consuming puzzle.
It looks like I made a second booboo. I forgot to gap the new Echo plug. The saw is running now, but I am wondering how long it will last, since it looks like it fouled the first plug.
The other saw (Jonsered) has a brand-new Chinese carb in it. A Zama clone. It started and ran, but getting it adjusted is tough. Tried the online directions for Zama carbs.
At first, it would only run at high speed. I fiddled with the idle speed screw, and I got it to idle. It was idling too fast. The chain moved sometimes. I did what the directions said, closing the L and H screws and then backing them out 2 full turns. Now the saw will not start. Bummer. It's too hot out there to keep fooling with it today.
One of the most annoying things about chainsaw repair directions is that they always start with, "Start the saw and run normally for several minutes." Hello? If it ran, why would I need to repair it?
Some day I'm going to market a saw with a fitting on the shaft so you can crank it with a cordless drill.
The original Zama is in an ultrasonic cleaner right now with Simple Green, also known as Earth-Crunchy Scam Fluid. The metering diaphragm doesn't seem to be completely flexible. I have a new one on the way.
The Jonsered is a pill to work on. The Echo's carb comes out in 30 seconds. The Jonsered is a time-consuming puzzle.
Your saws are improperly tuned and you don't know how to start them correctly, or how to clear a flooded saw. I have 22 saws and all of them stare in one pull when hot, and a half dozen after sitting dry for months.
After being in saw fourms for 15 or more years the operator is at fault as much or more then the tool itself[emoji111]
Hopefully the Ultrasonic Cleaner won't kill the carburetor permanently, sometimes the cleaners will save a carburetor sometimes they will kill them, do to the internals.
I know I'm comming off a bit harsh, but you're threads are all over the place, and it seems like you need to slow down a little listen the guys here, learn how to diagnose and tune your saws properly, before just replacing parts willy-nilly. You seem very enthusiastic which is a good thing, but you have a lot to lean, and listening is the only way to do.[emoji106]
Here is a video I made years ago on basic carb tuning.
After being in saw fourms for 15 or more years the operator is at fault as much or more then the tool itself[emoji111]
Hopefully the Ultrasonic Cleaner won't kill the carburetor permanently, sometimes the cleaners will save a carburetor sometimes they will kill them, do to the internals.
I know I'm comming off a bit harsh, but you're threads are all over the place, and it seems like you need to slow down a little listen the guys here, learn how to diagnose and tune your saws properly, before just replacing parts willy-nilly. You seem very enthusiastic which is a good thing, but you have a lot to lean, and listening is the only way to do.[emoji106]
Here is a video I made years ago on basic carb tuning.
Experience will get you to tune a saw in no time.
If you have some one close
To learn from would be best.
I always got the saw to idle needles to intial spec then adjust low speed to just shy of chain spin.
High when it touches wood it cleans out of fourstroking.
Easiest way i can explain i don't use a tach.
The jonsered carb could indeed be bad i have bought 40+ china carbs and had a few failures.
If you have some one close
To learn from would be best.
I always got the saw to idle needles to intial spec then adjust low speed to just shy of chain spin.
High when it touches wood it cleans out of fourstroking.
Easiest way i can explain i don't use a tach.
The jonsered carb could indeed be bad i have bought 40+ china carbs and had a few failures.
Paul Bunions
ArboristSite Member
I started the thread just because I wanted to find out if anyone knew of a cheap Chinese carb I could buy, and you decided to change the whole discussion. Now you're complaining about it. I appreciate the info you have provided, but you can't blame me if I'm not excited about letting you take over the thread.
I have started at least one other thread to get information on saw storage and so on, and you can go read up if you want. I'm grateful to people who responded, but the advice I got was not all that great. I'm still working on it. I can't wave a magic wand and make solid advice appear out of thin air.
Chinese carbs are great resources, but you seem to have something against them. To get any part for a saw locally, I have to get in a car and drive for miles, and getting repairs appears to be nearly impossible. I got a Chinese carb for my other Echo, and all I had to do was sit on the couch and use a mouse. It was nearly as cheap as a rebuild kit, it went in the saw in a few minutes (faster and easier than rebuilding or cleaning), and it worked like a dream. I know it sounds funny to throw out a carb instead of working on it, but in a world where you can get a great carb for $11, it's stupid to suffer to make an old carb, which is no better, work. When Chinese carbs are available cheap, OEM carbs are disposable, plain and simple. It's a fact of life.
Eleven dollars is not a meaningful sum of money to waste. A rebuild kit can cost more. Sticking a new carb in a saw that may have varnish problems is a fine idea, even if there's a good chance you're wrong. You can spend eleven dollars on breakfast at McDonald's. It beats leaving my saw with a numbskull for weeks and then paying a third of the cost of a new saw for a bad repair.
I wish there was an HDA268 knockoff. I would have installed and tuned one when my Echo started having problems.
Obviously, I do know how to clear a flooded saw, as I pointed out above. Sometimes it doesn't work, because flooding isn't the only thing that will keep a saw from starting. As to whether I know how to start a saw correctly, all I can say is that I follow the directions in the manuals. If the directions are wrong, it doesn't surprise me at all, because a lot of the information I've gotten from authoritative sources has turned out to be ridiculous garbage. It seems like the industry is very interested in sales and making money from repairs, but they don't knock themselves out providing useful information to consumers.
Yes, my saws are improperly tuned. I think we all knew that. One has a brand-new carb, so of course it has to be tuned. The other was repaired by...I won't say "jackass," but by someone whose efforts have fallen short in a number of distressing ways. It was really disturbing to find out that the screws holding the fan cover had fallen off in my pasture, after I paid over $130 for repairs. The screws are only available by mail order, and some of the thieves on the Internet wanted several dollars for each one.
Tomorrow or the next day, I will resume trying to tune the saws. It was about 98 here today, so tomorrow's forecast of 91 looked pretty good to me.
I wish I could just drop the saws off somewhere when they have problems, but long drives and month-long waits are the norm here, so I am stuck with my own limited skills.
I am definitely at fault. When I got these things, there was nothing in the manuals about the horrors of ethanol, the amazing uselessness of popular fuel stabilizers, the worthlessness of the manuals, or the fine points of tuning a carb. I looked around for information, and the information I got was total crap, so now I have problems. I am working on getting better information, however.
I don't care if the ultrasonic cleaner kills my old carb, since I have a new one. If it's true that they kill carbs, then this is one more example of me getting crap information in spite of making my best effort. I didn't come up with the ultrasonic cleaner myself. The idea came from hours of searching the web like a responsible person. I made a good effort, so I'm not going to let it bother me.
The issue with the Chinese carbs is they often cause more issues than they solve in my and others experience, sometimes right away aometimes after just a few tanks of fuel, and if they do work after a few months the diaphragms awalways fail do to the poor material used. OEM carbs are better in every conceivable way, and are almost always worth rebuilding. You get what you pay for most of the time.
Yeah most dealers are usless today no doubt about that. This makes places like this so valuable.
Don't know what you mean about taking over the thread just trying to help, you just at times seem defensive about your inexperience, we all start somewhere.[emoji111]
Every saw will start a bit different and sometimes with these new restricted saws it's hard to hear that first pop, and you end up pulling the saw over with the choke on too long and flood it. General rules if the saw doesn't fire with a choke on after about five pulls, turn the choke off,
and pull it over a few times, if she doesn't fire reset the choke. Rinse and repeat.
Ultrasonic cleaners can destroy the check valve, and sometimes it'll pop the welch plug out, which is fine unless you don't have the the rebuild kit with a new welsh plug. Plus sometimes the walsh plugs are difficult to reseal. I use an ultrasonic cleaner as well, but only as a last-ditch effort. Normally just spray everything out with brake parts cleaner, as it's a little more mild than carb cleaner.
No offense to you whatsoever, again we all start somewhere, but this is beginner stuff, as is not knowing what the information on the side of the bar means so you can get yourself a new chain. When I first came here I didn't know that either.[emoji6][emoji111]
Yeah most dealers are usless today no doubt about that. This makes places like this so valuable.
Don't know what you mean about taking over the thread just trying to help, you just at times seem defensive about your inexperience, we all start somewhere.[emoji111]
Every saw will start a bit different and sometimes with these new restricted saws it's hard to hear that first pop, and you end up pulling the saw over with the choke on too long and flood it. General rules if the saw doesn't fire with a choke on after about five pulls, turn the choke off,
and pull it over a few times, if she doesn't fire reset the choke. Rinse and repeat.
Ultrasonic cleaners can destroy the check valve, and sometimes it'll pop the welch plug out, which is fine unless you don't have the the rebuild kit with a new welsh plug. Plus sometimes the walsh plugs are difficult to reseal. I use an ultrasonic cleaner as well, but only as a last-ditch effort. Normally just spray everything out with brake parts cleaner, as it's a little more mild than carb cleaner.
No offense to you whatsoever, again we all start somewhere, but this is beginner stuff, as is not knowing what the information on the side of the bar means so you can get yourself a new chain. When I first came here I didn't know that either.[emoji6][emoji111]
Paul Bunions
ArboristSite Member
The Echo runs fine now, but it turns out the plug was not bad. The old plug was gapped at around 0.020", and it's supposed to be about 0.025". I fixed it and tried it again. It works as well as the new plug. I don't know if the gap had anything to do with the saw refusing to start. I don't know much about it. The Internet says a plug with a narrow gap will turn black, however, and that it can make an engine hard to start. That's consistent with my problems.
Because the Echo's old plug looked black and oily, I assumed the saw must be running rich. Maybe that was not the case.
I suppose I should make sure the Jonsered has the right gap, but it seems clear that the carb was the big problem.
I am going to continue studying up on carb adjustments. I have spent a lot of time studying whatever materials I could find over the last few days.
The Jonsered carb had a somewhat stiff metering diaphragm, and there was some mysterious crud in it. I rebuilt it today, except for a couple of shiny parts which clearly didn't need to be replaced, and it runs, but I am going to have to work on the idle speed. I turned the screw the wrong way while I was adjusting it today, and the saw died and refused to start, so I am leaving it for tomorrow. The factory idle setting appears to have been a little low. Internet sources say to speed it up until the blade moves and then back it down until it stops and leave it alone. This saw has always idled slowly and erratically, so I thought I should try to get it to where it smoothed out a little.
Getting torn bits of gasket off the carb took quite a while. Carb cleaner didn't knock them right off. I also used Goo Gone. I don't know if there is something better to use.
When I cleaned out the Jonsered carb, I took out the H and L screws and used the ultrasonic cleaner on them. They appeared to have rust (or something rust-colored) accumulating on the tips. Before I took them out, I seated them, counted the turns, and wrote it down. When I oiled them and put them back in, I tried to use the same number of turns so I would be close to the original settings. It worked well enough to make the saw run so it could be adjusted further.
My plan is to type up the adjustment steps and go through them on the Jonsered. I am inclined to put the new plug back in the Echo and see if it turns black. I would think that if it doesn't, the mixture must be okay. I don't really want to mess with the saw while it's not giving me problems.
The terminal nut fell off the new plug while I was playing with the saw. That was a new experience for me. The Internet says I can tighten it with pliers.
Because the Echo's old plug looked black and oily, I assumed the saw must be running rich. Maybe that was not the case.
I suppose I should make sure the Jonsered has the right gap, but it seems clear that the carb was the big problem.
I am going to continue studying up on carb adjustments. I have spent a lot of time studying whatever materials I could find over the last few days.
The Jonsered carb had a somewhat stiff metering diaphragm, and there was some mysterious crud in it. I rebuilt it today, except for a couple of shiny parts which clearly didn't need to be replaced, and it runs, but I am going to have to work on the idle speed. I turned the screw the wrong way while I was adjusting it today, and the saw died and refused to start, so I am leaving it for tomorrow. The factory idle setting appears to have been a little low. Internet sources say to speed it up until the blade moves and then back it down until it stops and leave it alone. This saw has always idled slowly and erratically, so I thought I should try to get it to where it smoothed out a little.
Getting torn bits of gasket off the carb took quite a while. Carb cleaner didn't knock them right off. I also used Goo Gone. I don't know if there is something better to use.
When I cleaned out the Jonsered carb, I took out the H and L screws and used the ultrasonic cleaner on them. They appeared to have rust (or something rust-colored) accumulating on the tips. Before I took them out, I seated them, counted the turns, and wrote it down. When I oiled them and put them back in, I tried to use the same number of turns so I would be close to the original settings. It worked well enough to make the saw run so it could be adjusted further.
My plan is to type up the adjustment steps and go through them on the Jonsered. I am inclined to put the new plug back in the Echo and see if it turns black. I would think that if it doesn't, the mixture must be okay. I don't really want to mess with the saw while it's not giving me problems.
The terminal nut fell off the new plug while I was playing with the saw. That was a new experience for me. The Internet says I can tighten it with pliers.
Rob S.
ArboristSite Lurker
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okay ihave the exact same saw echo cs 590 i feel your pain i use to have trouble starting that saw i still use it now are you having trouble starting it cold or warm ill assume you are having trouble when the saw is warm when you pull the starter rope after 2 or 3 pulls that saw is flooded you can take out the plug to verify but anyway put the plug back into the saw now put chain break on get a piece of velco and wrap it around the throttle and safety on top of saw hold saw by the handle the throttle is wide open with the velcro strap and pull the starter rope and the saw will definitely start when it starts take off the velcro and take off the chain brake remember this saw floods after 2 or 3 pulls on the rope i know this will help you
Those $10-20 knock-off carbs they sell aren't worth two squirts of duck poop.
Before replacing or rebuilding anything I'd so some troubleshooting to figure out exactly what's wrong with it vs just throwing chittiy parts at it which can be a lesson in humilty right to start with.
If you truely have a carb issue you should be putting a OEM rebuild kit in the factory carburetor instead. Those carbs will also on occassion need a main nozzle replaced as they have a check valve in it. Not common, but if/when they give troubles and kitting them doesn't work replace the main nozzle as well....FWIW
Before replacing or rebuilding anything I'd so some troubleshooting to figure out exactly what's wrong with it vs just throwing chittiy parts at it which can be a lesson in humilty right to start with.
If you truely have a carb issue you should be putting a OEM rebuild kit in the factory carburetor instead. Those carbs will also on occassion need a main nozzle replaced as they have a check valve in it. Not common, but if/when they give troubles and kitting them doesn't work replace the main nozzle as well....FWIW
You try and rebuild your carb first with rebuild kit?
If your going to try a aftermarket carb. Get the 620 afm carb from Chris at Saw salvage. So far nobody has had issues. @Duke Thieroff
https://www.sawsalvage.co/products/the-dukes-carburetor-fits-echo-cs-620-cs-620pw-a021004150
If your going to try a aftermarket carb. Get the 620 afm carb from Chris at Saw salvage. So far nobody has had issues. @Duke Thieroff
https://www.sawsalvage.co/products/the-dukes-carburetor-fits-echo-cs-620-cs-620pw-a021004150
I like when someone asks about something, we offer pro advice on what to look for and get told "I just want to put a carburetor on it" without any other diagnosis.
And then I get it. And fix it.
And then I get it. And fix it.
I was getting ready to start a post about the Dukes carburetor. I have a 590 used I just acquired. I’m getting ready to open the muffler up and it appears that JB welding the carb may not be the best thing to do long-term.
So, as far as the Dukes 620 car, this is legit and works well?
Surprisingly this is the only thread I can find when searching the site on the subject.
Because Chris the shop owner and most of us have our own chainsaw repair groups on FB. Threads about them all over the place being good to go.
