Diary of a Mad Man - Leaf Blower Repair

So, I was gifted a well worn, but operational Craftsman Leaf Blower. It worked fairly well, but the pull start had some hitch in its giddy-up. The cord often didnt retract all the way, and it took approximately 9,045,361,541,263 pull attempts before it would start...give or take. However, once it was going, it would blow for days (thats what she...uuhhh, nevermind).

Well, yesterday, after the first eleventeen thousand yanks, the thing coughed out a few plastic bits. Not good. The following yanks yielded very little friction.I knew immediately that the start mechanism had given up, but I was curious about the extent of the damage. So, down the rabbit hole we go

Let's get started. Oohh, look, I found some clear horizontal workspace in the garage (thanks to my father in law downsizing, I have this handy rolling toolbox/bench).

Next, we need a victim...err...subject

Take the bottom cover off, and the output tube, and you see the impeller

Remove the impeller (what a treat that was), and you see the screws that hold the engine to the base plate

When you remove the base plate, youre left with just the starting mechanism.

Be careful when you remove the starter cassette, because there is a clockspring of doom inside

OK, so, then, you spend the better part of your evening cursing and kicking things while you try unsuccessfully to reinstall the demon-spring. Then, you google it, and figure it out. Once youve removed all the skin from your fingertips, and narrowly avoided a massive, stress induced cardiac event, you have the thing back together, and you can really see whats wrong. Oh, heres your problem, most of the teeth are missing from your pull start pulley.

And thats where we stop for the day. A new pulley is $15 or so, shipped from Amazon. Of course, none of the Sears locations on the planet stock parts anymore. How else are they going to succeed in their plans to go out of business if they dont begin failing to have things in their stores that people want to buy? Undeterred by the lack of business savvy found by the Sears and Roebuck Co., I formulate a plot.

The starter pulley mechanism is there to rotate the engine up to a speed where it begins self-sustained combustion. Cars do this with an electric starter, which is basically, just a motor that engages the crank (well, the flywheel technically, but lets not get caught up in semantics). I know Ive seen commercials recently that show small engine equipment being started with a hand held thingy. I have an electric hand held thingy that also can drill holes.

And, if you look closely at the 3rd pic, there is a 14mm nut at the end of the crankshaft that holds the impeller on. Im betting that I could simply cut out a small hole in the bottom of the base to allow access for a 14mm socket on the end of an extension, and use my handheld drill to spin the crank to start the thing. Even if I cant, Im not hurting anything by trying, I can order the new cassette pulley if this fails.

I will take another crack at it tonight, and will fill you all in on what I find. Ive been wanting to try direct driven electric start on this thing ever since I got it - starting it sucked, but it ran so well once it was going, that I couldnt just walk away. Im pretty excited to try it out...

In to see how you handle the cracked impeller after you overtightened the nut using the drill-start.

There is a bushing on the shaft to counter just this sort of issue...craftsman thoughtfully corrected that potential problem before I had it.

That said, I already know how to cast them in aluminum. This was the impeller from a sump pump...just for fun:

That casting came out a littl epourous and rough. I have another that turned out much better, but no pics. It would be fun learning how to balance one of these for high speed rotation

Nice.

Does the direction of tightening match the direction the motor/impeller wants to spin?

Yes, (IIRC) it does. If it doesnt, there is a flat on the shaft itself, and I could probably come up with an arbor adapter to fit the flat. If worse comes to worst, I could simply add another nut, and tighten it against the first, then I could spin it either way.

Caution if it spins backwards. I broke a drill trying to start, an albeit much larger motor, that way. Turns out there is just a reverse threaded motor shaft the chuck is threaded onto and a small screw holds it in place..... Needless to say said small screw is broken off in my motor shaft. It was a nice 1/2" drill....

Caution - Anti-climactic conclusion ahead:

So, as it turns out, in order to start an engine, the driving motor must be able to freewheel when the now running engine begins spinning faster than the starter motor, giving you time to disengage. You cant disengage a normal power drill fast enough by hand...which is fun...if your idea of fun is a running motor with a drill stuck to the crank jumping out of your hands and then trying to catch it. Then you would have a blast. For the rest of us, its terrifying lol. But, I did get it to start, which, right up until my heart attempted escape through my gaping maw, was pretty cool.

So, I took the easy way out - I screwed a small machine screw vertically into the pulley approximately where the tooth was missing directly across from the remaining one. I used a screw that was fairly thin (maybe 1/4" if that), which is small enough to grab the pawls on the crank and get it to rotate. Voila, working 2 stroke blower. I have another pulley on order to replace the broken one (if that screw comes out, its gonna be bouncing around in the opening under the crank...no bueno), but this will get me thru the next week or so before it gets here.

Sorry, no pics, or brown inducing jumping blower/drill combo video...just this lame post.

i fixed my 1 year old 2 stroke poulan blower by taking it in with the last scrap load and buying an electric one and a 100' cord. my life is much better now. you are living on the edge.

Nice. But, I have 125' of driveway. 2 stroke > Electrons for me. I will only need the screw to last me about 2 starts before the new pulley gets here.

I really wish you had thought to film that first start.

You need to make a 1 way clutch thingie. Say, two pieces that "grab" each other when spun in the direction that it takes to start the blower and push themselves apart when the blower is spinning faster than the drill. Put one piece on the blower, grab the other piece with the drill, spin the drill which spins the blower, blower takes off, drill is loose already so lay it down.

4cylndrfury wrote: Nice. But, I have 125' of driveway. 2 stroke > Electrons for me.

Not all electron powered units have cords.

I've used my electric blower about 25 miles away from the nearest power source.

SVreX wrote:

4cylndrfury wrote: Nice. But, I have 125' of driveway. 2 stroke > Electrons for me.

Not all electron powered units have cords. I've used my electric blower about 25 miles away from the nearest power source.

I find the act of unrolling and rolling cords to be cathartic, therefore I have two 100' cords that allow me access the entirety of my domain for the blowing of various things.

I started my el-cheapo WeedEater gas blower with my cordless impact a few times. Never had a problem, so maybe I was lucky. I honestly don't understand why every piece of 2-stroke lawn equipment doesn't come with an access port for jacking in a drill.

I'm all electric except for my leaf blower. It is a heavy mother, but damned if it doesn't keep going. No primer bulb, just full choke and give it a few pulls. I hose the carb down once a year and have replaced the fuel lines/filter once. For all intensive purposes it should have been disposable, but I've had it for years.

Use an impact instead of a drill. Those free wheel by design when not on the trigger.

And I want a video.

It started fine BTW lol. But, Like I said, new pulley will be here this week, and I will get it installed, and my leaf-blowing will be drama free.

But, I am intrigued by the clutched or freewheeling drill start design. Something like this:

Except larger, and it needs to be left hand threaded, because the crank spins CCW.

Down another rabbit hole I go...Perhaps this project still has a heartbeat.