Anyone familiar with old echo saws

[Little Jerrry]

Hi

If anyone has an Echo VL chainsaw with the coil under the flywheel hoping you could help me out.

The coil seems to have only one wire coming out to the condensor which leads me to believe the coil is grounded by the fact its bolted to the cylinder? Do you know if that is correct?

I have a 705vl that had spark but wouldn't run right, so as part of fixing it up I cut the wire to the condensor and wired in an electronic module but I am now getting no spark...I'm sure its a grounding issue given the coil previously gave spark.

I've got the wire from the coil going to one of those Nova type ignition module, and then the ignition module grounded to itself...pretty straight forward but obviously I messed something up.

Adam

 

[Justsaws]

Reverse the two wires on the nova module. Check for spark.

 

[Little Jerrry]

First thing I did as I have made that mistake before ....I also disconnected the killswitch to further isolate things

 

[Chris Ross]

Check the spark plug

 

[Little Jerrry]

Brand new, but I'm using a spark strength tester tool that goes between the boot and grounded to the cylinder

 

[neutral4x4]

You might have a bad module. Is it a genuine Nova II module? There are a lot of bad copies kicking around and even some of the name brand ones are bad out of the box from what I've read. I'm running a genuine Oregon 33-053 module and a points (VL) coil on my Echo EVL with great results.

Wiring is pretty simple. The coil bolts to the stator plate. The coil wire goes to one pin on the module. The other pin of the module goes to ground. The module bolts to the stator plate. The kill wire is spliced in from the coil wire and kills the saw when grounded. Leave the kill wire disconnected until you get spark.

I always start with the cheapest solution first when troubleshooting. That being said, if it doesn't work, switch the wires on the module. It sounds like you already did that, so the next step is to try another module. If you rule the module out, it's time for a new coil.

Once you do get spark, make sure to double check your timing with a timing light. My timing was off by about 100 degrees after installing the chip. I ended up removing the flywheel key and rotating the flywheel to set my timing. Factory spec is 30 degrees BTDC. My timing issues may have been due to using an EVL flywheel and a VL coil. Either way, I would still double check.