Oddly Packaged Homelite 410 Parts

[onlyhomelites]

I never know what I'll find in a parts lot, but this one has me scratching my head a bit. I've come across Homelite packaged and labeled pistons & wrist pins for the Homelite 410. The odd part is that they are individually packaged and have unique part #'s that I can't find referenced anywhere. Every other Homelite saw that I know of has had the piston & pin sold as a matched set under one part#. Even more odd, I can't find the part#'s in any literature. I have a shop manual from 1981 and even the price & superseded lists (effective January 1, 1981) don't show these part#'s. As you can see from the wrist pin pic, it was packaged in October of 1980 and the piston in November of 1980. Even more strange, the piston, pin & rings combo that we've come to know (A-93443) is not listed in the price list.

Perhaps more strangely, I have found (13) of the wrist pins, along with (3) of the pistons. I'm left wondering why in the heck this shop would have ordered that many wrist pins? Especially since Homelite hadn't seen the need to make pistons & related parts widely available to dealers at the time. I wonder if parts would have been individually packaged for use at the assembly factory? It seems like a waste of packaging and time, but clearly at some point Homelite found it necessary to package these parts individually.

A-93221 (a)

A-93221 (b)

93222

[sweepleader]

You really do have an odd one there. Pins are usually fit to pistons, to get the clearance just so. At least that has been my experience. Maybe at that time they had a different philosophy in that regard. If they were meant for the assembly line, parts like that are usually bulk packed from a vendor, even if the plan is to hand select for fit when they get installed. Plenty odd...

[edju1958]

The $64,000 question is:What the heck are you going to do with an extra 10 wrist pins without matching pistons?

                                                            Ed

[oologahan]

Due to the sequential numbers I think they were off an assembly line as well.

[sweepleader]

Where I work the sequential numbers only mean that the same guy designed or drew up the parts at the same time.

Perhaps since pistons seem to get destroyed much easier than wrist pins, there used to be matching pistons that all got used with the old pins, just a guess.

Leon, maybe you need to design some sort of art work that needs a lot of wrist pins...

[oologahan]

Dec 27, 2019 7:39:47 GMT -5 sweepleader said:

Where I work the sequential numbers only mean that the same guy designed or drew up the parts at the same time.

Perhaps since pistons seem to get destroyed much easier than wrist pins, there used to be matching pistons that all got used with the old pins, just a guess.

Leon, maybe you need to design some sort of art work that needs a lot of wrist pins...

Or  if they can be used ad 410 shotgun slugs.

[onlyhomelites]

That would be one helluva slug alright! I suspect these pins are destined to sit in my inventory until hell freezes over!

[undee70ss]

I’ll check my literature when I get a chance

[blythkd]

Dec 27, 2019 10:42:52 GMT -5 onlyhomelites said:

That would be one helluva slug alright! I suspect these pins are destined to sit in my inventory until hell freezes over!

I suspect you're right!  I don't recall ever selling a wrist pin, for anything, over the counter or through the shop. 

I bet someone was on the right track with the assembly line theory.  Maybe they had a bad batch of pins and issued pins through service parts to go to the line?  Open packages until you find one that fits right and go with it?  Who knows?