Anyone else ran into this BR600 ignition problem?!?

[alexcagle]

I was diagnosing a BR600 today. It had no spark, so I pulled off the coil, making sure to account for those two plastic washers. I always thought they were soley there to shift the coil to where it tracks right in the center of the magnets on the flywheel.
I noticed one of them was disintegrating, and unuseable, so I used a steel washer of similar dimentions. Installed a new coil........no spark.
Strange. Double checked everything. No joy.
Long story short; even though the coil attachment screws contact the coil body, and screw into the cylinder, the washers have to be plastic or phenolic. Otherwise it won't spark.
Thats strange.
Anyone else ran into this problem?
Anyone speculate why it won't spark without plastic spacers?

 

[rynosawr]

I was wondering the same thing on some chainsaws before that it didn't seem to matter if the plastic washer/spacers were used or replaced with steel ones...


Thanks for the tip on the BR600 blower coil mount washers, as I have two I need to fix as well as a BR550.

 

[alexcagle]

* You are welcome. Next time i speak to mr wizard at the Stihl training center, I'm going to ask him WTF?!?
Put that kind of info in the service manual Man!

 

[alexcagle]

I was wondering the same thing on some chainsaws before that it didn't seem to matter if the plastic washer/spacers were used or replaced with steel ones...

If you have time, try and see if you get the same results with metal washer.....lol
*
I was beginning to think maybe the earth lost or reversed its magnetism.
*

 

[rynosawr]

Haha, will do!



Yeah, I sure hope not, with the way we fully rely on the magnetic fields for all things...

 

[rmh3481]

Bolt w/o the washer/spacer grounds the lamination's, preventing the internal capacitor from holding a charge.

 

[alexcagle]

Yes, but doesn't it do that anyway?
It's not sleeved to isolate it from grounding.
The screw head touches the coil, and the threads go into the cylinder.like this:
If i use the phenolic spacers it sparks.
*
If i use the steel spacers no el sparko.
*
The current flows through either way, right?

 

[rickwil]

I was diagnosing a BR600 today. It had no spark, so I pulled off the coil, making sure to account for those two plastic washers. I always thought they were soley there to shift the coil to where it tracks right in the center of the magnets on the flywheel.
I noticed one of them was disintegrating, and unuseable, so I used a steel washer of similar dimentions. Installed a new coil........no spark.
Strange. Double checked everything. No joy.
Long story short; even though the coil attachment screws contact the coil body, and screw into the cylinder, the washers have to be plastic or phenolic. Otherwise it won't spark.
Thats strange.
Anyone else ran into this problem?
Anyone speculate why it won't spark without plastic spacers?

The washers are there to isolate the coil somewhat from the heat of the cylinder, otherwise I don't know why the coil doesn't work otherwise unless the washers also move the coil a bit more into the magnetic field as you said.

 

[HarleyT]

This is in the mechanic's manual........