Called into the tip yesterday afternoon and was shocked to find a FS38 in remarkably good nick. Good spark and compression. Paid $15, brought it home.
Re-threaded the line, put the plug back in, checked air filter, half a tank of 50:1 and a dash of 'Mechanic in a Bottle' additive and it fired up 3rd pull. Ran rough and stalled but came good after a minute and a slight twiddle on the mixture screws
Did the lawn edges for 10 mins and is running 90% - slight bog if the throttle is slammed on, but seems to be getting better
Worst case its a 15 min job to put a kit through the carby
Owner was presumably told the running issues could only be cured with a $35+ kit + $80 labour - thus making up over 50% of the original price and not worth it
Hi Tyler, it is hard to comprehend how much equipment it dumped that still has years of service life left in it all because it needs a bit of maintenance. The pollution that is created by this throw away world could be halved if things were being repaired and not just replaced
I can't believe what gets thrown away - this has scarcely ever been used - the pull cord is all nice and clean without wear or even dirt build up
Thankfully a lot of what gets thrown out is 'intercepted' before it goes to the crusher - either by guys like us who can fix/use it themselves or by the guys who look at it and go 'oh, I can sell that as is on gumtree for a profit'. Although occasionally the latter are complete idiots and end up sitting on piles of crap for years due to insane asking prices.
Aside from dirt ingestion, running low/no on oil or the ancillaries failing, its hard to kill most engines through wear - they just don't get the hours use up
Can't say I've ever heard of a half crank Ryobi getting a hone or an oversize piston. They may be out there you never know. I find them the easiest to get going. Other brands I've found seem to have chronic problems that are too difficult to fix but are evidently not always going by this thread.
Ahh, if only victa had kept producing the thumblatch catcher series, they would be in better shape today!
MF, have seen someone try to do a Ryobi Ryan engine - he loved this old leaf blower vac and his wife straight fueled it. He couldn't successfully hone it due to the stones falling down the transfer ports.
I took him over to the tip and he got a curve shaft trimmer with good engine as a parts donor, and actually got another good identical old grey Ryobi blower vac as a backup at the same time.
It will get to the day were we have to be pulling engines and honing again. Right now with briggs and PT, its not worth the time/effort to do, especially briggs - PT's (due to their simpllicity) are still getting done a fair bit I'd say.
20 years ago, 202's and 173's were getting thrown in scrap metal because it was cheaper to get a used one. Have you seen prices even average engines command now?
Of course the same thing won't really happen to mowers - supply will just dry up. God help us when all we can find is B&S OHV and Chondas once the flat heads and PT's are all gone
I don't know if it's the case anymore but several years ago disposed Ryan Ryobis were prolific and you couldn't give them away. I ended up accumulating 13 or so and threw most of them out when we moved. I scored a good early build 1980s one with green plastic shroud with Tillotson carby that goes like a champ to this day, though gets hot and needs a rest after a while of leaf blower attachment duty which consistently labours it. I never use it for trimming any more as my full crank Mitsubishi powered straight shaft Kaaz performs so much better.
Ahh, if only victa had kept producing the thumblatch catcher series, they would be in better shape today!
