Homelite XL

[sawjo]

I have just gone through a small Homelite XL for a friend that included: new fuel/oil lines, and a carb rebuild kit for the Walbro HDC carb. The saw will pop on the choke and then starts on the mid choke and revs out and dies. I have tried the mixture screw from 1/2 to 2 plus turns out and thats the best I can get. Are these carbs kind of touchy? Is there anything I should re-examine on the rebuild? PS. New air-filter and plug.
TIA.

 

[Ax-man]

First guess, you have an air leak some where. If the saw trys to run on mid choke that says your cutting the air flow into the bottom end of the engine and the saw is drawing air from somewhere else other than through the carb.

Without tools to test a carb it is hard to pin point the carb as being the only problem.

 

[Jackman61]

Check the fuel and oil lines. When you reassemble the motor into the case, it is possible to pinch the lines. I have one of these small saws, and I have to be careful when putting it back together. There are a couple of raised ridges that channel the motor back into the case. If the lines get accross one of the ridges, they will be pinched shut. Other thing that can go wrong is the "duck-bill" or one way valve in the oil tank can slip out of the pressure line from the crankcase. Usually this results in a mosquito fogger as the chain oil starts to get pulled into the crankcase. It could play a role in finicky starts I suppose.

 

[Pioneer]

It looks like you may have a crankcase air leak somewhere, or poor fuel delivery, or your fuel level setup in the carb is not right. Check the fuel line to see if it pinched or blocked, then check the carb, and last check your crank seals and case mating surfaces. You should only need about 3/4 turn out on both mixture screws. I have an xl and I nicknamed it the "Bogmaster" because if it is not set up perfectly it does just that. It also uses the HDC, but I switched over to the same size Zama and had a VERY slight improvement in performance. The carbs that are put on these saws are much too large, they are exactly the same carbs the 41 cc xl1 uses. Not the best thing for an engine the same size as a weedwacker. On the plus side, the xl's are nice and light and very handy for trimming branches on the trees around the house.

 

[sawjo]

I also noticed that there were 2 diaphram gaskets in the kit and I thought they were just doubles of this gasket - I suspect they might be slightly differnet and may have installed the wrong one, will check tonite. This carb, by the way, has only one mixture screw and its in the Low speed setting so I lose a little bit of tuning there.

 

[Al Smith]

Check the setting on the fuel shut off lever,sounds like it could be set too low.

 

[Ranchero50]

I have one too, that had been sitting in the back of a pickup truck for two years (freeby). Even after flushing out the old gas and installing a new filter the old gas managed to clog the filter and it was doing exactly as you said.

Good cutting little toy with a new bar and chain.

Jamie

 

[asharrow]

Hey Jackman61,

I read your post above about the duckbill falling out of the pressure line from the crankcase and the "mosquito fogger" described my XL perfectly. Tore it open this evening and sure enough, that was the case.

Cleaned things up, put the duckbill back in and put some small copper wire around it to hold it, put things back together and WOW, what a difference.

Lots of RPMs and power and no extra smoke. This is one that came from the dump, so that makes it extra nice.

Thanks for posting those tips.

Jim in Maine