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Post by brick on Nov 8, 2023 1:05:55 GMT -5
Hey! I have been reading quite a bit on this website, and decided to join the Homelite club. Here is how I found my way to this corner of the internet... My grandpa was a mechanic for most of his life. He used to be a diesel mechanic, but I just remember him working on lawn mowers and small engines for people when I was a kid. He recently had to move to a retirement home, and the family asked us to clean out his shop. I was sorting through things and came across a couple chainsaws. I am guessing they are old saws that a customer never picked up (so probably not cost effective to repair) but I took them home anyway. I like to tinker with things.
I checked the compression on a Stihl MS 250-it was about 75 psi. Pulled the muffler and the piston was all scored up...okay that one is not going to run. Next up was this old orange-red saw I didn't know anything about. It didn't have a spark plug in it, and it must have been sitting around for a lot of years. I screwed in the compression tester and gave the cord about 5-6 pulls. The gauge showed 175 PSI...that can't be right? My firewood saw doesn't have anywhere near that much compression. I tried it again-still read around 175! This got me a little excited, so next I scrounged up a plug and checked spark....nothing. I asked wise old Mr. google about Homelite saws with no spark, and found out how terrible the blue coils are...I opened up my saw and this is what I found... Well, that is probably why Grandpa never fixed this one...but I kept reading on some website forum called house of homelite about how maybe you could put a coil in an oven and magically bring it back to life. That didn't sound promising to me, but I found a random guy on youtube named Leon who said it was true, so I decided to give it a try. I have an old toaster oven in the shop for just these kinds of things, so into the toaster it went. I let it cook for about two hours around 200° and let it cool overnight. What do you know, the next day it had spark! I was honestly shocked! I figured the carb was very likely in need of a rebuild, but my little kids had been "helping me" with the saw, and they were excited to try it. We dumped in a little fuel, gave it some pulls and what do you know, it fired! I got it to run, but couldn't get it to tune very well. My kids didn't care; they were so excited that we 'fixed it'! I got home from work the next day and my 7 yr old said, "Dad, have you been thinking about the chainsaw a lot today?" I laughed and said "Yeah, I have actually." "Me too!" he said.
Back to House of Homelite I went. After some quality time reading, I found out about Leon's chainsaw parts and repair. I ordered up a carb kit, duckbill valve, intake gasket, and new fuel line. Then it was off to youtube, where I found some great videos about carb rebuilds from Mr. Leon. He had my parts in the mail in no time, and eventually my little helpers and I got the new parts installed and put the saw back together. We fired it up on Sunday, and it seemed to run pretty well! One problem though; I could not adjust the idle low enough to get the chain to stop spinning. I cut a little wood with it, and I kept hearing this metal rattling noise from the clutch area. I don't like metal rattling noises, so we pulled the metal cover off of the clutch and found this: Well that is definitely what was rattling! This is all the further we have gotten on this project. If you have recommendations for a replacement clutch, let me know. The S style ones seem to be a bit hard to find? I saw some of the other spring-style ones, but I haven't taken the time to figure out what other parts I would need to switch to that style. If you have any recommendations or advice for me, I am all ears.
Thanks for taking the time to read all this. I really appreciate the great content from you all on this forum!
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Post by blythkd on Nov 8, 2023 7:42:45 GMT -5
That broken clutch is common. The 3 shoe replacement that replaced the S clutch decades ago is actually the better setup. It's 98132 or A-98132.
Some other things to check:
Good chance it needs crankshaft seals to idle right. You can tip test it with it idling to check.
If you plan to run it much and get it hot, make sure there are 3 spacers on the muffler screws under the cap. If there's only one spacer on the rear screw, it could be prone to overheating. Homelite had a service bulletin on this back in the 80's.
With the bar installed and tightened, clamp the bar in a vise and grab the rear handle and work it up and down to make sure the engine is tight to the bar. If not, there's 3 screws behind the clutch prone to coming loose.
There's also 3 screws behind the flywheel that will lock up the engine if one comes loose. T25 torx on those.
Check the cylinder nuts to make sure they're tight.
You might check the exhaust port for carbon but the saw doesn't appear to have been used much.
I'd probably pull the oil line/strainer out of the tank to check for sawdust. The strainer is very efficient at picking up all the crud in the tank.
While the carb is off, I'd check that intake manifold. They're prone to cracking and creating an air leak. The reeds are probably ok but I'd check them if I had the manifold off.
There's a screw between the bar studs that's prone to coming loose. It screws into the tank. Torx head.
I'd check the bottom 2 screws in the handlebar. If they come loose they can damage the holes in the tank.
Any of these screws that aren't tight, I'd put loctite on. Super EZs are fairly prone to vibrating screws loose.
That's just a few things I've found over the years on Super EZs. Great little saw when they're right. Very handy and powerful for its size and weight. Unfortunately, the blue coils sidelined many a good SEZ years ago.
Good luck with it. Great find! Great story!
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Post by Clasec on Nov 9, 2023 23:12:07 GMT -5
Great saws. Keep in mind the clutch has left hand threads.
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Post by blythkd on Nov 10, 2023 6:36:11 GMT -5
I just realized both sides of that clutch are broken off. That's a bit odd. Usually just one side is broken off. Someone must have kept running it for a while with one side broken until the other side broke too. They usually shake enough after the first side breaks that you don't want to keep running it.
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Post by brick on Nov 11, 2023 21:53:20 GMT -5
Hey I am just getting back to this...busy week. You guys are great! Thanks for the tip about the left hand clutch threads, and blythkd, you have given me lots of great info-I appreciate it. I will work through that list of things to check! On the clutch, do I need any other parts to make the 3 shoe clutch work, or is that 98132 a drop in replacement?
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Post by blythkd on Nov 11, 2023 22:20:04 GMT -5
The replacement clutch is a drop in replacement.
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Post by brick on Nov 13, 2023 23:32:58 GMT -5
The replacement clutch is a drop in replacement. Okay thanks. I thought I read something somewhere about needing a thrust washer with the 3 shoe style, so i wasn't sure. Do you just leave the old cover plate off? (the one with two holes that bolts on to the face of the S style clutch) I am going to try to find a clutch this week.
Also, I had a little time tonight, so I pulled the muffler off. It seemed pretty dirty to me. I hit it with some carb cleaner, which didn't do much. I tried some oven cleaner, which got quite a bit of it off. It's soaking in some parts cleaner overnight.
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Post by undee70ss on Nov 14, 2023 2:50:05 GMT -5
The spark arrester screen, the best way to clean it is with a propane torch and a stiff wire brush.
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Post by blythkd on Nov 14, 2023 7:19:16 GMT -5
The replacement clutch is a drop in replacement. Okay thanks. I thought I read something somewhere about needing a thrust washer with the 3 shoe style, so i wasn't sure. Do you just leave the old cover plate off? (the one with two holes that bolts on to the face of the S style clutch) I am going to try to find a clutch this week.
Also, I had a little time tonight, so I pulled the muffler off. It seemed pretty dirty to me. I hit it with some carb cleaner, which didn't do much. I tried some oven cleaner, which got quite a bit of it off. It's soaking in some parts cleaner overnight.
It's been a while but I don't recall the 3 shoe replacement clutch requiring an additional washer. If it did, it surely would have came with the new clutch.
The new one won't need a cover plate on the outside since the shoes will be contained and can only slide inward toward the clutch drum. They can't come off.
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