Recent content by glentre

Fish, Interesting that Stihl came out with a liquid to help resolve sticky valve problems in their 4-mix engines. Seems like an admission that the engine is prone to valve stem carbon buildup. I found a Stihl service bulletin on the liquid that says to put the piston on valve overlap where...

Yesterday I adjusted the valves and while doing it, verified that both valves were opening and closing properly and appeared to be in time with the flywheel and coil. Today I did a compression test using a high speed drill. All I got was the needle flickering and basically, no compression. To...

Thanks for the several good suggestions above, addressed in order. First, I tried spraying carb cleaner into the carb after removing the air filter and cranking with the choke open but got no firing. I did have the valve cover on and tight but did not have a new gasket. But even if this...

So, I think I finally have a decent spark. The problem was that the coil mounts on two bolts into the engine. Even with the correct thickness feeler gauge between the flywheel and the coil, when tightening one bolt before the other, the coil moves in the adjustment slots so the gap at one end...

The speed necessary to get one of these new coils to fire is confusing. Would pulling the start rope spin the engine faster than a drill at high speed? Is that possible? If I pull the muffler off and look at the piston, what kind of damage should I look for? Since it is an engine with...

Fish, Thanks for your input but what would I learn by pulling the muffler and checking the piston? Wouldn't it be true that the piston has nothing to do with whether a magneto engine fires a spark or not? Glen

This morning, I reset the coil closer to the flywheel at 0.006". Got a very weak spark with plug grounded to the head and a strong looking spark with a socket extension stuck into the spark plug boot and held close to the head. Basically no change from before. I then put everything back...

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll reset the coil closer to the magnets in the morning and give it a try. Should have thought of that. Can magnets go bad all a sudden and the engine just stops when it's been running fine for the previous half hour and then not be able to generate a spark? Glen

This morning, I tried the old plug using high speed on the drill with the plug resting against the head. At very high drill speed, there was a weak spark at the plug. So then I bought a new plug and tested it the same way after setting the gap to 0.028". With high speed on the drill and the...

Wow! I'm really surprised that a drill is not fast enough to produce a spark. Does this mean pulling the starter cord produces a faster speed than the drill can? Thank you all for replying so quickly. Do you feel lack of start impulse speed is the reason I have no spark? Anything else I...

New to the forum......hope someone reads this and helps with a solution. While operating with my 6 yr old Stihl BR550 backpack blower, the motor suddenly stopped. There was no sputtering or coughing so I suspected an electrical rather than a carburetion problem. I removed the plug and...