Return easy-pull starters to normal

Arborist Forum

Help Support Arborist Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Old2stroke

Never too many toys
AS Supporting Member.
Joined
Jan 24, 2016
Messages
1,544
Reaction score
2,163
Location
Ottawa, Canada
If you don't like the mushy feel and possible short lifetime of these starters, this is an easy fix to restore them to normal starters. There are a couple of types around so for the first one, once you have the starter off, you just remove the centre screw of the rope drum and then pull out the centre part that engages with the flywheel pawls, be sure to hold the rope drum down while doing this as you DO NOT want to lift the rope drum and recoil spring out. Once the centre part is out, there should be a round cavity with a large flat wound ribbon spring and you just fill (7/8) the cavity with epoxy, put the centre part back in and wait for the epoxy to cure and it's done. I use a liquid marine epoxy just slightly bulked up and thickened with styrofoam dust that easily fills in around the spring. If you try using a thick paste epoxy it will be hard to get it into the coils of the spring and if you remove the spring, add the epoxy and then press the spring back in, BEWARE; some springs can be VERY difficult to get back in. I would not try polyester resin as it cures so fast it doesn't give enough working time and would produce a lot of heat.
The second type has a spiral spring coil fitted around the post that the centre part with the pawl teeth fits over, it's the one found in all the Poulans with this type of starter and is even easier to fix. If you have access to a welder, just remove the spring and run a few beads across the coils of the spring so that it is no longer a spring and put it back together. No welder? If you carefully clean the spring and use a propane torch and a strong acid based flux, you can solder all the coils together into a solid lump to get the same results.
Might be other types out there that I haven't seen, but basically all you have to do is find the secondary spring and modify it so that it is no longer a spring.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top