Homelite XL Starting Problem - about to toss the saw in the garbage!

[hunter81]

I was given a Homelite XL series saw. The carb is a Walbro HDC and has a date stamp of 1982 on the carb.The saw came from the original owner that gave it to me and is in pretty amazing shape giving the age. I've never had a homelite before and was told it was a great saw with very little use. I'm no newbie to the maintenance of the saws, but just never had a homelite before. It started hard and felt like the pully was slipping, but did start eventually after about 10 pulls over and over and that was with some good gas but the idle was at 100% even w/o your finger on the throttle and the chain wouldn't slow to a stop.

I replaced the plug and fuel intake line & filter , air-filter & re-built the carb with the walbro kit for the HDC, new pully & new starter recoil spring & now I can't get the darn thing to stay running if I can even get it started to begin with. The carb when I first got the saw had the LSN out about 3-1/2 turns , HSN 1/2 and idle about 1 turn out. According to Walbro it's 1 full turn out on all 3 needles.

Currently everything is set to right at 1 full turn out. First pull START...run approx 30 seconds die adjust carb , and nothing. Second try pull until your arm falls off and nothing, nothing , nothing and actually the new pully I put in started slipping just like the old one.

Then I noticed the saw was flooding, so I tried everything again with a few tweaks and same problem. I finally figured out that if I put the throttle to the center position and not full choke I could get it to start and didn't appear to flood as bad, but it would still die after about 5 seconds. If I left it over night it would start right up and run but then die after about 30 seconds and then you would pull your arm off again trying to start it.

I pulled the carb off and re-positioned all the new gaskets again. I did not do anything with the reed valve. I left that in-tact on the carb and used the same gaskets, but this time tightened the carb screws a bit snugger, checked the duck bill on the fuel tank & Same problem , no start or flood start, so I again took apart the carb and adjusted the needle with a ruler as the carb instructions suggested and it ran again first pull , but then died after about 2 minutes and wouldn't start again, back to square one!!

I'm about ready to toss this darn saw in the trash but everyone tells me it's worth getting it going.

I looked at the cylinder & piston and everything looks almost brand new. I have good spark and appears to have good compression. The clutch and flywheel have not been touched, but the coil appears to have the correct gap.

Any help would be greatly appreciated! I have another exact model of saw and it has the exact same problem as this saw did in the beginning where the throttle runs at 100% and chain doesn't stop when you let off the throttle but I don't want to touch it until I have this one figured out. The 031 Stihl did the same thing , but new fuel lines & carb re-build fixed the issue. The homelite no such luck...

Help !

 

[hunter81]

Hu...nothing?? must not be too many homelite experts out their unless I posted in the wrong spot!

 

[Little Al]

I was given a Homelite XL series saw. The carb is a Walbro HDC and has a date stamp of 1982 on the carb.The saw came from the original owner that gave it to me and is in pretty amazing shape giving the age. I've never had a homelite before and was told it was a great saw with very little use. I'm no newbie to the maintenance of the saws, but just never had a homelite before. It started hard and felt like the pully was slipping, but did start eventually after about 10 pulls over and over and that was with some good gas but the idle was at 100% even w/o your finger on the throttle and the chain wouldn't slow to a stop.

I replaced the plug and fuel intake line & filter , air-filter & re-built the carb with the walbro kit for the HDC, new pully & new starter recoil spring & now I can't get the darn thing to stay running if I can even get it started to begin with. The carb when I first got the saw had the LSN out about 3-1/2 turns , HSN 1/2 and idle about 1 turn out. According to Walbro it's 1 full turn out on all 3 needles.

Currently everything is set to right at 1 full turn out. First pull START...run approx 30 seconds die adjust carb , and nothing. Second try pull until your arm falls off and nothing, nothing , nothing and actually the new pully I put in started slipping just like the old one.

Then I noticed the saw was flooding, so I tried everything again with a few tweaks and same problem. I finally figured out that if I put the throttle to the center position and not full choke I could get it to start and didn't appear to flood as bad, but it would still die after about 5 seconds. If I left it over night it would start right up and run but then die after about 30 seconds and then you would pull your arm off again trying to start it.

I pulled the carb off and re-positioned all the new gaskets again. I did not do anything with the reed valve. I left that in-tact on the carb and used the same gaskets, but this time tightened the carb screws a bit snugger, checked the duck bill on the fuel tank & Same problem , no start or flood start, so I again took apart the carb and adjusted the needle with a ruler as the carb instructions suggested and it ran again first pull , but then died after about 2 minutes and wouldn't start again, back to square one!!

I'm about ready to toss this darn saw in the trash but everyone tells me it's worth getting it going.

I looked at the cylinder & piston and everything looks almost brand new. I have good spark and appears to have good compression. The clutch and flywheel have not been touched, but the coil appears to have the correct gap.

Any help would be greatly appreciated! I have another exact model of saw and it has the exact same problem as this saw did in the beginning where the throttle runs at 100% and chain doesn't stop when you let off the throttle but I don't want to touch it until I have this one figured out. The 031 Stihl did the same thing , but new fuel lines & carb re-build fixed the issue. The homelite no such luck...

Help !

Have you tried running it with the gas cap slack/removed? could be the tank vent,If the chain spins at idle its usually weak clutch springs. bit difficult to diagnose you seem to have covered most things I would try the Lo needle out 11/4 turns out for starters

 

[oldmar]

It sounds to me like your problem(s) may be old saw related, not necessarily Homelite related. A saw that won't idle properly and dies out is very often a saw with either a bad carb or air leaks. You say that you've rebuilt the carb, so we'll lay that aside for the moment. If the carb needles were 3+ turns out when you got the saw, that tells me air leaks. I would pressure/vacuum test the saw before going further. There's any number of tutorials on this topic here if you search them out.

BTW, these old XLs do not like ethanol gas, not even a little bit. Make sure that the oil pump diaphragm isn't blown out, otherwise your bar oil winds up in the cylinder, and the saw runs a little smoky.

 

[Eccentric]

It sounds to me like your problem(s) may be old saw related, not necessarily Homelite related. A saw that won't idle properly and dies out is very often a saw with either a bad carb or air leaks. You say that you've rebuilt the carb, so we'll lay that aside for the moment. If the carb needles were 3+ turns out when you got the saw, that tells me air leaks. I would pressure/vacuum test the saw before going further. There's any number of tutorials on this topic here if you search them out.

BTW, these old XLs do not like ethanol gas, not even a little bit. Make sure that the oil pump diaphragm isn't blown out, otherwise your bar oil winds up in the cylinder, and the saw runs a little smoky.

That's true, although some of these saws don't have the diaphragm oil pump. some only have the impulse line that runs to the oil tank from the crankcase. This line has a sintered bronze filter-looking connector in the end of the line, with a 'duckbill' check valve on the end of that. You could vary how much crankcase pressure stayed in the tank (and how much bled back through the bronze connector) by how much of the connector was exposed (and not covered by the line). The Shop Manual tells you to adjust the amount of exposed connector within a range of 1/16" to 1/8".

Often times, the line and/or the duckbill valve have decayed, and you now have the bronze connector laying in the bottom of the oil tank, with the remainder of the line poking into the oil tank and drawing oil into the crankcase...

 

[redoakneck]

Pressure, vacuum, and compression test. Then see what happens.

 

[Agrarian]

I haven't read where you have inspected/replaced the gas line. Any chance that is the problem?

 

[hunter81]

Sorry for the long post everyone.

Oh..forgot this is a UT 10618A Textron model. I'll try to address everyone's post. Sorry for the delay working like crazy. I did try a few things last night.

I only use 92 prem. fuel with Startron additive to remove the ethanol. As mentioned lines & filter have been replaced. I've been told 50/1 mixture? If you can help here and let me know where I could locate a service manual. I do have a p/l but it's not a very good copy. A manual would be great too! So currently using a all in one mix until I nail down what it's supposed to be.

Lil-Al ~Could you elaborate on this one? "Have you tried running it with the gas cap slack/removed? could be the tank vent" what/how do you do this? I've not replaced duck bill on the fuel tank but not sure I understand what your talking about here.

I did think of one thing since the common factor appears to be a air leak. I did swap out gas caps . When I re-built the carb the kit did not have a gasket for the reed valve which needs 2 of them. I'll do some further research on vacuum/pressure testing. I don't have one currently unfortunately.

tonight I Just swaped carbs with a Zama and it almost fired right up. I'm certain it's carb something now..I think. but will continue to research on vacuum & pressure testing. I do know now that the clutch springs are shot that shouldn't effect starting though, good catch on the idle speed though and slippy pully. Last night after carb swap, It stayed running, 4 stroked at a idle which tells me H/L needles are spot on, but idle screw on this ZAMA was about 8 turns out and died about 5 minutes after idling. After a re-start it was hard to start and then bogged way down and die, then 3rd round no start same symptoms as first carb....ZAMA carb also has a reed valve and I do not have these gaskets.

Eccentric~ would this impact starting? or simply a dirty smokey saw during running. Sounds like it would just simply run rich and possibly rather smoky hard on the piston buildup but wouldn't really impact starting and staying running from what I can tell. I do think this saw has this type of setup for it has 3 oil lines one coming from the tank, to the cylinder,then to the bar. I haven't taken this one apart , but on a 330 recently worked on I think I know what your talking about.