Stihl 026 hard to pull

[newbury]

<snip>

As far as the eyedropper goes, does the fuel go into the sparkplug port or through the carburator (filter removed)?

I put it in the carb.

 

[timsch75]

It definitely fires with fuel dropped through the carb.

 

[dfkrug]

I lean toward this being the problem:
http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/...stihl-026-hard-pull-img_20160309_191620-1-jpg

Your photo from above shows your carb and the fuel pump diaphragm. It looks bad. Warped
and kind of porous. The 2 valve flaps are prob not seating properly.

Carb kits come with one of 3 kinds of fuel pump diaphragms: the fibrous one you have, solid plastic
mylar-type, and the older rubber kind. The first 2, I suspect, are designed to last longer with crappy
modern fuels. They all distort and get stiff, eventually. The fibrous ones seem to last the longest.

 

[Coyote machine]

Spark plug hole, carb, wherever it can get sucked across the plug when firing...

Why wait for a definitive answer to the impulse line removal- just dig into it so we can get this thing DONE! Not everything on earth has instructions on the i-net....
Go where no other has gone before.....

 

[timsch75]

Spark plug hole, carb, wherever it can get sucked across the plug when firing...

Why wait for a definitive answer to the impulse line removal- just dig into it so we can get this thing DONE! Not everything on earth has instructions on the i-net....
Go where no other has gone before.....

I'm no stranger to digging into anything without clear instructions or someone holding my hand. Noone wants this done more than I do. I've learned enough about "haste makes waste" to know to be tentative when my gut tells me to be. I could tell you about the time in my younger days I pulled apart the engine of my 1st motorcycle trying to find a rattle that turned out to be the chain guard. That cost me a pretty penny in the end. Good judgement comes from experience - experience comes from bad judgement....

This is an old saw, and a popular one at that, so I didn't imagine it'd be too hard finding some other who has gone there before who could clue me in or show me a reference for removing the impulse line that I'd not found yet. Worse comes to worse, I'll dig into it further than I've already done, but I'm not depending on this saw for anything at the moment, so I'm being patient. Thanks again to everyone for all of the help, and I regret an inconvenience or irritation (but won't lose much sleep over it). I'm getting closer, and have learned quite a bit so far, thanks primarily to you fine folks at sites like this and the many others like it.

 

[timsch75]

I finally got the impulse line off. Removing the handle allowed better access to the left side gap and I was able to get a pair of hemostats in there. Still couldn't see much, but it wasn't too hard to feel what to do. The impulse line was in good shape - no cracks/holes. I put it back together and scratched my head some more. I checked the impulse by hooking my mityvac to the carb connection on the impulse line and cranked it. Plus/minus 4 or 5 psi/inHg indicated sufficient impulse, since I saw that fuel was being pulled through the fuel line with next to no vacuum.

So, must be the carb. Given the new kit and otherwise new looking carburator, I couldn't quite pull the plug on it. I pulled it off again, to triple check everything. One thing I learned was that there was a gauge for setting the metering level. I had seen in discussions that the metering level was either supposed to be level with the face of the carb housing it mounted into, or set according to the gauge. I didn't have a gauge, so tried to set it as close as possible to gauge depth using other tools. I put it back together, and it still wouldn't fire.

I knew from before it had spark and would fire with fuel injected directly, so I got my syringe and verified that again. This time, I put a bit more fuel into the carb, and it would sputter for a second or two. In my frustration, I pulled the throttle and it tried to run, but would choke down. A few more attempts and I got it to run as long as I held the throttle. I had previously set the high and low screws to the factory setting of one turn out each. At this point, I adjusted the low screw to 1.5 turns out and off she went, running without me having to hold the throttle. Minor adjustments from there on the low and idle screws and she runs and cranks very well. A day later it started on the 1st pull.

I'm a little baffled still that the factory settings on the carb wouldn't even give me a sputter, but I know a lot more than before, and I have a good running saw.

Thanks again everyone for the guidance.

 

[Coyote machine]

Long road to hoe; all well that ends well. And we all learn from this- factory may be the BASE setting, but it's not the final setting. And, for the OP, often a factory setting is good when everything is out of the box, and with hours on the clock those settings can fly out the window.:confused3:

Glad you have a successful outcome now.

 

[Kubota 2350]

I do have spark. I do not have new ethanol free gas/oil mix. My mix is about a year old. My new Stihl line trimmer works with it. How long before gas goes too stale for use in these saws?

I have not pulled the muffler to look for scoring.

I did clean the air filter and am letting it dry overnight.

There lies a big part of your problem, get some new gas.

 

[2458n]

No mention of blowing the carb parts with compressed air. I always do this after a night of soaking. Jets sometimes stay plugged without the puff of air.