Late 90s Poulan "Wild Thing" - easy enough to fix?

[dougand3]

The straight nipple goes to fuel tank with filter/ pickup at end. The 90* nipple goes to short purge tube. Long purge tube goes to tank hole in corner, near clutch - no filter needed. Just stick in securely 1/2-1".

 

[BrokenSVT]

I doubt these will help a ton. I had like thirty seconds to sneak into the garage and did the best I could, short of pulling the carburetor off.


P.S. My saw is wearing its sexy red dress

 

[klaus von herten]

I doubt these will help a ton. I had like thirty seconds to sneak into the garage and did the best I could, short of pulling the carburetor off.
View attachment 584046 View attachment 584047

P.S. My saw is wearing its sexy red dress

Very nice! Thank you for the effort, it is helpful!

So the top right nipple, thats the fuel pump part of the carb. Does its line cross over and go through the hole on the left, into the fuel tank and terminated with a filter? That's the fuel supply, right?

Thats what I understand after looking at this video. Seems to be the opposite of what I initially thought.



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[BrokenSVT]

That's right. I ran into the same problem when I was putting mine together. In my case, the fuel lines were long dissolved into gelatin.

 

[klaus von herten]

OK so I resolved the line thing. I ran the thick line through the hole that is clutch side into the tank and added the filter to it. Other end connected to the topmost brass nipple coming straight from the top of the carb.
Small, return line went to the hole in the gas tank starter side. This plugged into the "push" end of the purge bulb.
I then ran a fuel line between the starter side nipple on the carb that was bent 90 degrees , and the "pull" tube of the purge bulb.

So the flow is from fuel tank to the top of the carb, out of the bottom of the carb, to the purge bulb back to the fuel tank.
I replaced the spark plug and the air filter and checked the carb for function from the linkage, choke and kill switch.

I added fuel. This time it wasn't leaking. Pushed the purge bulb several times and it filled with fuel.

Tried to start it but no dice. I smelled gas, so I might have flooded the engine. Put it away and will try again tomorrow. I am going to place the old spark plug back and see if that helps. I didn't gap the new one or check it.

Anything glaringly wrong from what I did? Are my fuel line connections correct? Thanks guys for your help. I feel like I am close to getting this thing to work!

Hope its not a scored piston.

 

[dougand3]

Above sounds wonky.
Fuel filter in tank - small diam line - up thru hole under carb - carb nipple nearest big center screw.
Purge bulb short black tube - med diam line - curved carb nipple.
Purge Bulb long black tube - med diam line - tank hole near clutch - no filter. Stick in 1/2'-1". Or pull in with long needle nose pliers - curved are best.

 

[klaus von herten]

Above sounds wonky.
Fuel filter in tank - small diam line - up thru hole under carb - carb nipple nearest big center screw.
Purge bulb short black tube - med diam line - curved carb nipple.
Purge Bulb long black tube - med diam line - tank hole near clutch - no filter. Stick in 1/2'-1". Or pull in with long needle nose pliers - curved are best.

Okay thanks, I'll try it! Maybe I'm flooding the engine with too much fuel with my current setup.

Edit: I set it up as you described. Going to let everything dry up tonight and try to cold start tomorrow.

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[klaus von herten]

Dangit. I pumped purge bulb 6x today, pulled it in full choke, got 2 seconds of sputtering, put in half choke and pulled 2 times before the rope came out. Going to see later tonight if that can be repaired. Now it ocurred to me since I replaced the carb I never adjusted the idle. I'll give it a quarter tirn once I replace the pull rope.

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[dougand3]

You can leave pulley on and finagle new rope in. I pull pulley to inspect and clean. 1 screw/washer holds white rope pulley in. Be gentle pulling pulley off - you DON'T want the spring to sprung out - a pain to rewind. As pulley works off, I stick a small screwdriver between spring and pulley to force spring to stay down.
Rewinding rope - as you look down at the knob (where flywheel pawls grab) - wind CW. It will make sense when you look at the rope hole out the recoil housing to pull handle.

 

[klaus von herten]

You can leave pulley on and finagle new rope in. I pull pulley to inspect and clean. 1 screw/washer holds white rope pulley in. Be gentle pulling pulley off - you DON'T want the spring to sprung out - a pain to rewind. As pulley works off, I stick a small screwdriver between spring and pulley to force spring to stay down.
Rewinding rope - as you look down at the knob (where flywheel pawls grab) - wind CW. It will make sense when you look at the rope hole out the recoil housing to pull handle.

Thank you! Will try this one I get me some new rope!

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[klaus von herten]

You can leave pulley on and finagle new rope in. I pull pulley to inspect and clean. 1 screw/washer holds white rope pulley in. Be gentle pulling pulley off - you DON'T want the spring to sprung out - a pain to rewind. As pulley works off, I stick a small screwdriver between spring and pulley to force spring to stay down.
Rewinding rope - as you look down at the knob (where flywheel pawls grab) - wind CW. It will make sense when you look at the rope hole out the recoil housing to pull handle.

Well I went to the lawnmower shop down the street. I'm in L.A., the land of inexpensive gardeners and inexpensive labor. For laughs, as I was buying the rope, I asked how much they would charge to do it for me. $60, which is probably reasonable but too rich for my blood.

It took me about 10 minutes work following your advice and it was good as new.

I took off the dirty muffler and looked at the piston. No sign of scoring but I'm surprised, as the inside of the muffler was coated in oily gunk.

Everything smelled of gas so im letting things dry out tonight.

One thing that I'm thinking of is that I have the thicker tubing going from the outlet of the carb (bottom and furthest from center screw) to the purge bulb inlet. The outlet of the purge bulb is also connected to the thick tubing going to the gas tank return.

I'm wondering if this is causing too much gas to be sucked into the carburetur when I hit the purge bulb. Maybe I should run the thinner tube between the outlet of the carb and the inlet of the purge bulb?

Also wondering how to keep any loose gunk inside the muffler from getting into the cylinder and ruining the piston?


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[dougand3]

No, don't change the carb lines. Clean carbon out of muffler, re-install and don't run engine too rich.
The smell of gas thing...it's a 2 cycle engine. Oil laden fuel hangs around longer than 4 cycle.

 

[klaus von herten]

No, don't change the carb lines. Clean carbon out of muffler, re-install and don't run engine too rich.
The smell of gas thing...it's a 2 cycle engine. Oil laden fuel hangs around longer than 4 cycle.

Thank you! Dialed the idle down a half turn to see what would happen. Cleaned out the muffler as best as I could and when I next tried to start, some smoke came out and a spurt of bar oil came out (Chain did not move) There was just a split second of engine movement, then as I was releasing the starter rope, I felt and heard a clang, as if the starter banged into the flywheel or something.

I ordered a new muffler and will try, and will rebuild the carb to see if that works. If that doesn't do it, this saw is going on the shelf and I will putter around with it as time progresses and I know more.

Update: the old spark plug was loose. Removed it and replaced with new spark plug. Maybe it's not gapped right?

Is there a way to mechanically zero carb settings? Can't tell if I'm letting too little or too much fuel into the carb.

 

[klaus von herten]

So I took it into a different shop, let's see if they can get it to start. At this point, I am hoping that it's just the carb tuning and told them as much.

New lines
New bulb
New filter
New carb
New bar & chain
New spark plug
New air filter
New gas cap
New fuel
New clutch cover
New muffler on order


Thanks for all your help, guys!

 

[klaus von herten]

So the saga has a happy ending!

After a week, I got the saw back from a different shop. Mind you, these shops cater to professional gardeners and are very busy. They found out that my Amazon bought carb was a bum carb and they replaced it, the spark plug, gave the brand new chain a special sharpening that I guess the local gardeners get, and gave it back to me for $68 plus tax. They said the engine is good and it's like new. They started it for me and it sprung to life in two pulls! Maybe next week I will get around to cutting something with Dad's saw. So totally stoked. Thanks again, gentlemen and have an awesome weekend!!

 

[dougand3]

Good deal that your dad's saw is running.