I picked up an old Atom Edger Model 101 last night. It was a sad case, and it happened due to neglect. One of the springs in the centrifugal clutch driving the output shaft broke. The broken end of the spring was thrown outward by centrifugal force and it ate the plastic spigot that aligned the engine with the drive shaft. Some of the gouged out plastic got under the loose weight and prevented it from retracting fully. As the amount of plastic under the weight increased, so did the runout of the clutch, and therefore the misalignment with the output shaft. By the time this picture was taken this morning, there was well over an eighth of an inch of slack in the plastic coupling aligning the two parts.
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Here is the inevitable result of the rotating misalignment: the crankcase broke at its weakest point: where the base flange attached to the main bearing housing.
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This is a lesson in how to make rubbish out of a perfectly good edger. It still had spark, magnificent compression, etc, but it was broken in half due to not replacing a little broken spring worth a couple of bucks and replaceable in about 10 minutes. The vibration must have been horrendous, but the tenant soldiered on until it came apart in his hands.