Stihl 180C Leaning Out any Ideas?

[Mister Twister]

My trimming saw has been doing this for some time. I thought last week when I pulled the plugged screen out of the muffler it would run better but don't. I love this little saw for limbing and trail clearing work but it is really getting annoying. It leans out and won't take throttle all of the sudden when I am using it. Acts like it is running out of gas but isn't. Happens quite frequently and has since it was new. Seems more often now. I have brought it to the dealer and they tell me there is nothing wrong sometimes it is great and sometimes it will not take throttle. Of course it runs good when I bring it there they don't use it enough. I also have had the carb off myself can't find anything wrong. Does anyone have any ideas what might be going on or had a similar issue? Venting issue maybe I see the vent is not in the cap and I tryed leaving it loose all it did was leak gas. There are no adjustment on the carb that I could see.

 

[blsnelling]

I'm guessing you have a bad carb. Check your fuel line while you're at it.

 

[thomas1]

Brad ^ has a thread about swapping out the carb for one that is fully adjustable, it is a fairly simple swap and makes a world of difference. Well worth the $35 IMHO.

 

[mattinky]

I'm guessing you have a bad carb. Check your fuel line while you're at it.

+1 on the fuel line. My buddy has one of those saws that was doing the same thing, I found a lot of crap in the carburetor (those saws don't have the world's greatest air filters on them) I cleaned the carb and it still did the same thing. Only when I took the fuel line in my hand and flexed it back and forth did I find the hole in it. It had very low hours on it and I just wasn't expecting the fuel line to be bad...

 

[BloodOnTheIce]

I run into alot of MS180/170's with various lean running issues. Most of them have improperly adjusted metering levers
in the carburetor. Remove the diaphragm side of the carb cover, diaphragm and gasket, lay a straight edge
across the body of the carb. and it should just touch the metering lever. If there is a gap, bend the lever until it touches and
it will fix the lean issue much of the time. Carbs for these saws are about 30$, so no reason to monkey around with
clean and rebuilding an old carb.

 

[Mister Twister]

Great info guys. I will adjust the metering lever on the needle and check the gas line. I was leaning towards looking at that gas line it makes sense that is is sucking air some ot the time. I love this little saw for limbing if I can just iron out this issue.

I just fixed a Stihl cultivator for a friend today. It runs great now all it was was there is a nipple coming out of the exhaust and brazed on the inside is a screen. It was plugged solid with unburned oil. I burned the screen and muffler out with a propane torch and it purrs like a kitten again. It has high and low speed jets on it so it was easy to tune.