Today on Repairs101, or is it yesterday on Repairs101? Yesterday I took this leaf blower
outside to clear my yardÖ [Pulls Cord]
I live in Canada. [Wind howls]
Sometimes the weatherís nice. [Rain]
So now I realize thereís a bit of a contradiction here with my claiming to be an environmentalist
and using a machine like a two stroke leaf blower. The by-laws in my neighbourhood insist
that the properties be kept in character with one another and everybody in my neighbourhood
has manicured lawns. If it was up to me Iíd just let it all grow over wild and return
to the state of nature. And for that matter ñ as much as I want to make the environmentally
conscious choice every time, sometimes you have to make some compromises. But you know
I also drive this four by four when I go off-road, instead of a horse - as much as I love horses.
Alright, so letís get started. Iëll just take this nozzle off so itís not such a big
ordeal to work with. OK Iím just going to drain the fuel out of this for obvious safety
reasons. OK so weíre going to need some Allen Keys
to do this job. Generally speaking Iíll reach for one of these two kits ñ BONDHUS Gorilla-Proof
tools made in the U.S.A., to me that still means made with pride and quality merchandise.
Hereís another BONDHUS tool that I would strongly recommend this for the average person
who just needs something with a good selection. If youíre not a serious tool collector ñ
youíre just someone whoís trying to get the basics together so that they can take
care of things themselves ñ this is a great place to start.
Just take this last screw out of the bottom here. There we go. Piece of cake, eh? So the
fan housing comes right off just like that as you see. OK Iíve got a cover here Iím
going to take off ñ three screws one two and a third one hiding under here. Looks like
Iíve got to remove the impeller in order to service the pull-cord - which is just terrible.
And you can see thereís also a backing ring here to cover this bearing. There you can
see theyíre Torx. Theyíve switched from ìAllenî to ìTorxî. Iím using a tamperproof
Torx ñ tamperproof has a hole in the centre. Iíve got the entire motor and fuel can right
here and this is the impeller housing here. The inside of the impeller housing and theyíve
gone and built the pull-start mechanism inside of that. OK herein lies the recoil mechanism.
Now Iíve had trouble with this since day one ñ it doesnít recoil properly. So ñ
oh there goes the spring out the back. That is unfortunate. Oh crap. This is bad design.
This is just terrible. There it goes. Well, if you canít beat ëem, join íem, right?
Son of aÖ OK so Iím loading the spring into the housing
just by winding it in. I am not impressed with the way this machine was designed. There
we go. Now be very careful, you donít want that to jump on you. You can see the tang
on this needs to go in that tang slot right there. So Iím just going to drop that in
there. There we go. Now the only thing to do is to line that tang up ñ on the back
of this reel here thereís another slot that the other tang that the tang on the other
end lines up to. Now Iíve got the cord as short as possible wrapped around the reel.
To pre-load it: turn opposite from which it recoils in other words: in the direction that
it pulls out. Iím desperately trying to hold that spring in place with the butt of my hand.
OK so thatís through, this pipe passes through here. Push the pull cord out first and then
the pipe and then weíll seat this end so Iím just going to shove that through the
handle and pull it out a little bit. Now they had a regular stopper knot ñ I like to use
a figure eight knot here. Put the cover on ñ that just drops in here like that and thatís
whatís going to keep the spring from coming out. OK? This is um, most uncivilized. Look
at that it still doesnít work properly. Checking that I had the right tension on the
spring every time I redid it and I redid it and I redid it again to make sure that I was
doing it correctly. And in the end it operates exactly the same as it did before. This seems
to have been designed to make it as difficult as possible to make a repair.
For instance this chainsaw ñ three screws and youíve got the start mechanism in your
hand. OK so look at that now: thatís a civilized start- cord mechanism. Three screws and itís
in your hand. OK so Iím going to put this back together
again nice and easy ñ I wish it was nice and easy. Twenty-one fasteners: twenty screws
and a big fat bolt. And oh and also youíve got to take the fan off too so that makes
twenty ñtwo when you count the nut on the end of the drive shaft that holds the fan
in place. So Iím going to make two modifications here
Iím going to add a little dry lubricant ñ just a little bit of dry graphite dust powder
on the outside edge here. Besides a whisper of dry lubricant I want to add spacers here
and here to push back the cover just a tiny bit. Unfortunately I donít have any washers
that are the right size so what Iíll do is just take these electrical connections and
nip the end of it off with my side-cutters. Letís see, Iíll just put that in there like
that and then hold onto this end and let that end fly, and voila, home-made washer. So Iím
threading the washer onto the bolt ñ this should take care of my spacing problem back
this off just enough so that itíll rotate freely. And these home-made washers here theyíre
a nice soft metal that will crush down and conform.
Well thatís the smoothest itís been yet, without question, it recoils properly.
I mean honestly is it reasonable to ask me to take the entire motor and fuel tank off
in order to change the pull cord? Iím going to suggest that itís not reasonable.
OK, put that bearing back in so that it lines up nice and straight.