Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Workshop Wednesday-Stud Removal

 It was raining monday and that means I was working in the shop. We have a lot of customer repair work so I spent the day fixin stuff.  Greg handles the small engine repair so I always ask him where he needs help. The first card he gave me was for a chainsaw. The customer complaint was "runs ok at full speed but not low speed and won't idle".
 I don't know how other mechanics sort things out in their head and approach problems like this. What I do is make an initial guess, look at that and if I'm right I fix it. If I'm wrong I start from the beginning and kinda follow a flow chart in my head till I come up with an answer. This system has worked pretty well. When I'm right it saves a lot of time and money. When I'm wrong I only lose the couple of minutes it took to check out my initial guess. Either way I'm always looking out for other potential problems with the equipment as I'm handling it.
 My guess on this saw was a loose carb or damaged intake boot. When I pulled the top cover I discovered the carb was in fact loose. No carb boot on this one. Hey, I don't know the inside of every piece of crap chainsaw ever made.




 The top right intake bolt is broken. The stud is in the cylinder and won't back out with a pick. I was thinking about drilling the stud and using an easy-out. That can be a pain so Al suggested just welding a nut to the stud and wrenching it out.

 A little prep work is in order. The rag is soaked with water to protect the fuel tank and carb from welding sparks.

 I just kept kinda spot welding on top of the broken stud until I had built up a sort of extension of the stud.

 I then welded a nut on to the built up stud. I let it cool for a minute and backed the stud out.
Success! This sure beats some high pressure desk job or assembly line work.




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