Help locating parts for Pulsar mower

[smhardesty]

I bought a Brute walk behind trimmer from Menard's with a three year warranty. On about my 5th use, it wouldn't start. I did the usual testing on something under warranty, no luck.
I called Pulsar and they recommended a local shop. Three weeks later, I go to pick it up and it takes maybe 8 pulls. The warranty says first on second pull. I asked the shop guy and he said it hasn't been run in a while. By the time I got home the service guy calls and says Pulsar rejected the warranty service. When I called Pulsar they said I didn't get approval for repair. I had two other conversations with Pulsar they said they were discussing. I was planning on negotiating the bill with the shop suggesting they call me if they received no payment. Never heard another word.

Welt to use the trimmer a week or so later, no go....

Yeah, the more I see and hear about this Chinese stuff, the worse it gets.

I just got home from picking up a pretty decent Honda self propelled mower. I never even bothered trying to start it until I got home. I made a stop on the way so the total time from when I loaded it up until I got home was in excess of 2 hours. I unloaded it, pulled the engine brake, pulled the cord ONE TIME, and it fired and purred like a kitten. Just a quick once over seems to indicate all it needs is 4 new wheels, a service job, and a really good cleaning and it's ready to sell.

The guy had three other pieces of equipment and he said if I wouldn't dicker on the asking price for the mower, he'd throw the stuff in. Well, I hadn't intended on dickering on the price to begin with. If he had been asking more I would never have made the trip to begin with. Two of the other pieces are identical Craftsman hedge trimmers. One runs as is, but has a broken blade and the other doesn't run yet, but has a perfectly good blade. I'm not even going to try making both worthwhile. I'll just make one out of two and let it go.

It's the third piece that again has me scratching my head. I don't know how popular the things are, but this is a Badger trimmer unit. All that is here is what I'll call the top end. It's the engine and the top half of the shaft. There is supposed to some sort of coupler to add the rest of the shaft with the head and is supposedly able to accept different kinds of tools. I haven't even begun to search for stuff. I did find the Badger site and it doesn't look promising. I really never expected to make this thing usable. It kind of reminds me of the Chinese mowers I have on hand and I don't need any more of that crap. LOL!

 

[ILENGINE]

I bought a Brute walk behind trimmer from Menard's with a three year warranty. On about my 5th use, it wouldn't start. I did the usual testing on something under warranty, no luck.
I called Pulsar and they recommended a local shop. Three weeks later, I go to pick it up and it takes maybe 8 pulls. The warranty says first on second pull. I asked the shop guy and he said it hasn't been run in a while. By the time I got home the service guy calls and says Pulsar rejected the warranty service. When I called Pulsar they said I didn't get approval for repair. I had two other conversations with Pulsar they said they were discussing. I was planning on negotiating the bill with the shop suggesting they call me if they received no payment. Never heard another word.

Welt to use the trimmer a week or so later, no go....

Those were made by Ardisam. Never any warranty payment issues with them.

 

[bertsmobile1]

First of all, over 90% of the product these retailers sell is from overseas. Second, Did you ever wonder why they would choose to buy from another country and not the USA? Other countries can make products for pennies on the dollar, plus with the cheap child labor that they enjoy, it's still cheaper to have these companies make the product and ship it than it is to buy American. Americans did it to themselves. Always looking for cheap cost of buying something, that's why manufacturing for a lot of companies moved overseas, then of course we have all the Gov't taxes and all the EPA and OSHA regulations in this country. Manufacturers here can barely breath, while in other countries Gov't officials turn their heads the other way. Bottom line, it's all about profit. You buy a cheap throw, you get what you pay for. Now days, try to find a pure 100% American made and manufactured anything.

Yes it is all about GREED
Greed of the companies to make the biggest possible profit
Greed of the customer who want everything but does not want to pay for it
Greed of the politicans who ignore the breeches of competition laws to carry favour with their financiers.

People regularly ask me for my recommendations & then when they get them they get angry because my recommendations all end up being at the most expensive end of the market .

 

[TobyU]

I had another mower come in with a brand name I had never heard of. It is a Pulsar model # PTG12205, with a serial number of PTG1220520090337. The engine data stamped on the back of the case is DV0150 19123092329. I have searched and searched and can't find a single site that has any parts for this thing. I'm not 100% sure, but this thing can't be over 3 or 4 years old, and might even be newer, at least by looking it over. The original, paper, stick on price tag is still on the top of the motor. I'd think that would have been long gone if the mower was older than a few, short years.

It might be an off the wall, cheap push mower, but it has a couple of features that are pretty nifty. First, the handle is shaped with the end turned up, giving taller guys like me a more comfortable handle height to use. Then, there is a really nifty height adjustment system. There is a nice, large handle sticking up on the right rear wheel you use to make the adjustments. The rear wheels are connected by an axle assembly and a rod runs from the left rear wheel to the left front wheel. Another axle assembly connects the two front wheels.

There is a slight problem with the front left wheel. The owner backed a big zero turn over the left front corner. It bent the left front wheel bracket and the rod of the axle assembly. I'm about 99% sure when I take the front end apart I'll be able to straighten things out, but in case I can't for some reason, I'd like to be able to order whatever new pieces I need. I'll also need either a carb rebuild kit or a new carb. I haven't tried tearing things down yet. Before I get armpit deep in this thing I'd like to know for sure that I can get replacement parts.

The only thing I found online is in the link below. You can buy a whole new mower, but they don't list parts. I have sent a message to them requesting info on where I can get parts, but haven't received any reply yet. Any help in locating a parts dealer will be greatly appreciated. Oh, yeah. I managed to find a site to download an Operator's Manual for it and that site also had a parts list diagram. When I downloaded the parts diagram it was so small I couldn't read it and when I tried zooming in things were so blurry I for sure couldn't read it. Heck, I even put my really strong reading glasses on and couldn't see things clearly. LOL!

https://pulsar-products.com/our-products/lawn-mowers/#

I've only have two of these come in so far and I believe they're sold at menards. Gray with a decent deal of plastic on them and from what I remember black and white logo with a green or blue stripe or something like that but the name does ring a bell.
Hopefully you'll be able to bend things back into place as I don't know of a source for parts for these nor would I really want to bother.
We need to stop buying these complete Chinese pieces of equipment.
I guess you could say it's bad enough that so many of the engines are Chinese ones by Loncin or whoever else but I don't have as big of a problem with the engines being made in China as I do the whole machine.
It does create a certain problem like much less availability for parts.
And don't think just the off brands or Chinese brands do it. Anything that has a Chinese built engine can be in the same way as far as engine parts. I have a high-end aluminum deck dealer only Toro mower here that had one of two or three different variations of the Toro brand engine which is obviously just another Chinese clone version.
You can tell the difference at least in the main two variations by looking at the valve cover. One is stamp steel and one is thicker aluminum.
The stamp steel one is more common and probably many of the parts from other engines you would find on machines with Chinese engines will fit but the thicker aluminum one like I have is not nearly as common.
This one wiped out a valve guide after it slipped and continued to run long enough to destroy the head.
It needs a replacement head but they are not available.
The Toro dealer has already been through this many times and your only options are a short block or if you happen to have a good used one sitting around.
So the problem is lots of times Parts aren't available for these engines or they're not available in anything but complete replacement parts like an entire carburetor when that's just absurd.
I say it's absurd because even if you can get that cheap carburetor shipped to your door for $14 it's still ridiculous to replace the whole carburetor when all you want is a needle valve or a float.
I keep all used parts so normally I will have something that will fit but it's just a shame they don't sell individual Parts like Briggs & Stratton or Kohler would do.
Luckily, most of the bigger brands and USA brands of mowers all have parts available for the machine itself just not the engine.

This works out well because on any thing but very minor engine issues it's just not worth repairing anyways!
If you're in love with the thing and it's yours and you're not paying for labor and you want to waste the time then sure but it's still not the best or most cost effective or efficient way.
Even something that's fairly simple like a head gasket would still take you longer than popping the blade off taking off the three bolts and swapping another good engine onto that deck and you wouldn't have the expense of the head gasket.
You could say it's a shame to be part of that disposable mindset and stuff but most the time it's the best approach for everyone involved.
It is never cost-effective to replace an engine on a mower with a new engine and it's never cost-effective to pay the extreme labor to do internal engine repairs like a camshaft and often even a head gasket.
The only way you can consider it cost-effective is if you considering buying a brand new mower instead of the repair but that's not an accurate comparison
The accurate comparison would be to buy a used mower of the same age and condition of the one you have with a bad engine which would be considerably cheaper than a new one.
When you put a new engine on a mower it is now not equivalent to a brand new mower so it might be cheaper than buying a new one but you also monetarily have something less than the new mower.

Back to the original post, you said it needs a carburetor or something and my question is if it's just not running or not running right or won't start then it probably just needs the carburetor cleaned out.
We really need to stop replacing carburetors for these no starts!
Hardly any mower ever wears out a carburetor or even damages it. It would take 15 or 20 years of heavy use to actually wear out a carburetor and sometimes not even then.
Carburetors just get clogged up or dirty and need to be cleaned out so even though you can get a new one shipped to your door for between 12 and $20 please don't do it it just makes the situation worse with them not providing individual small parts etc.

I do this commercially and my ratios on replacing carburetors versus just cleaning them out stands currently at only 2-3 carb replacements for every 1000 that I clean out.

A real weird thing happened in the industry 3 years ago at least in my area..
All the shops who for decades had been doing carburetor rebuilds or carburetor overhauls stop doing that. They all started just replacing the carb.
I see a couple of reasons for it but not sure why they did it because they make less money this way most of the time.
Anyway, stop replacing carburetors. Clean them out and make them run properly.

 

[ILENGINE]

So the problem is lots of times Parts aren't available for these engines or they're not available in anything but complete replacement parts like an entire carburetor when that's just absurd.
I say it's absurd because even if you can get that cheap carburetor shipped to your door for $14 it's still ridiculous to replace the whole carburetor when all you want is a needle valve or a float.

Because that cheap carb is less than the parts to repair it. IE, $24 float valve in $17 OEM Honda carb.

I keep all used parts so normally I will have something that will fit but it's just a shame they don't sell individual Parts like Briggs & Stratton or Kohler would do.
Luckily, most of the bigger brands and USA brands of mowers all have parts available for the machine itself just not the engine

Kohler and Briggs are both in the complete component market, ie Briggs complete blower housing with starter assembly because replacement starter spring not available separately. Kohler has a few items in the category with the SH series engines. Then there are the Briggs engines were everything but 1/2 dozen parts are greyed out on the IPL

.

Back to the original post, you said it needs a carburetor or something and my question is if it's just not running or not running right or won't start then it probably just needs the carburetor cleaned out.
We really need to stop replacing carburetors for these no starts!
Hardly any mower ever wears out a carburetor or even damages it. It would take 15 or 20 years of heavy use to actually wear out a carburetor and sometimes not even then.
Carburetors just get clogged up or dirty and need to be cleaned out so even though you can get a new one shipped to your door for between 12 and $20 please don't do it it just makes the situation worse with them not providing individual small parts etc.

Would you prefer I replace your $20 carb and $30 labor or repair your carb using a $30 carb kit and $70 for labor. And those are real world numbers. And keep in mind the customer may pay the $50 for the repair not the $100.

I do this commercially and my ratios on replacing carburetors versus just cleaning them out stands currently at only 2-3 carb replacements for every 1000 that I clean out.

A real weird thing happened in the industry 3 years ago at least in my area..
All the shops who for decades had been doing carburetor rebuilds or carburetor overhauls stop doing that. They all started just replacing the carb.
I see a couple of reasons for it but not sure why they did it because they make less money this way most of the time.
Anyway, stop replacing carburetors. Clean them out and make them run properly.

Because it is more profitable in the long term of instead of using the time to clean and repair a carb than to replace when that time can be put toward a much larger repair that will cost in the hundreds. Small repairs are not conducive to shop efficiency.

 

[smhardesty]

.
TobyU, I have found that the Pulsars were sold by Menard's, Lowe's. Walmart, and our local farm service store, Rural King. I'm sure they were sold by many more retail outlets across this country. As for parts. You can get parts from Pulsar directly as I have stated before, but according to them, on a "case to case basis".

I think I have understood you to be saying that as a whole, all of us that do repairs on small engines, for whatever reason, should band together and refuse to buckle to the engine manufacturers by refusing to buy a complete carb when all we really need is a few parts of the carb. That is a grand idea, in theory. I say, in theory, for two reason. First, the manufacturers could care less if we refuse to buy a carb to make the necessary repairs on a small engine. Refusal to buy a complete carb doesn't mean a thing to them. All it does is prevent us from returning a piece of OPE to useful status. With outfits like Pulsar and all the other Chinese built equipment, that's actually playing right into their hands. They do NOT want us to repair any of their products. What they want is more sales of the complete product. They WANT to sell more new mowers. Period.

The second reason that theory will never fly is simply because you'd never be able to get even 5% of people repairing small engines to go along with that program. The reason is that all of us, including non-professionals like me, are doing this to make money. Whether we are talking about a true professional that either owns a full blown repair facility or works for one, or a small time operator like me that does this to keep busy and make a few dollars on the side, we all need to make a profit on our repairs. Very few can truly afford to refuse to repair a piece of OPE simply to make a point.

I have taken just a few minutes to check on parts availability for this Honda mower I picked up yesterday. One of the first things I checked for was carburetor parts. There is NO carb rebuild kit. There are only a couple of parts that can be purchased individually. I can, however, purchase a complete, ready to bolt on, new carb for only $24. When I started this thing up yesterday, it ran smoothly and sounded great. I would have no real reason to attempt to disassemble the carb, but since I am refurbishing these mowers to resell, one of the things I'd LIKE to be able to do is remove the carb and clean it all up, inside and out. That is the reason I look for carb rebuild kits for the carbs on every piece of equipment I refurb. None of us are perfect, especially a guy like me. It's too easy to accidentally tear a gasket or even lose a small piece of the carb when disassembling for cleaning. No, it doesn't happen every time or even often, but accidents do happen. If my plan was to simply disassemble and clean, but in the process I tear a gasket, I'll have NO CHOICE except to go ahead and buy a new carb. That's kind of frustrating, but it is what it is.

I agree that things should not be the way they seem to be in this business anymore. What I don't see is any change being made simply because small engine techs think things should be different. I still can't believe what has happened in the few years since I last did repairs. It's been said a few times in this thread already, the real story is nothing more than the bottom line for engine manufacturers and equipment sellers. Whether or not small engine repair shops survive or even profit is of little to no concern to the big companies. All we can do is the best we can to satisfy our customers. If that means we have to buy complete carbs instead of a carb rebuild kit or just a few pieces, then that's what we have to do. Deciding to either work on certain brands of equipment or not is an individual decision.

I would more than likely have gone ahead and bought the new carb for this Pulsar if the thing had not blown so much oil out the exhaust. I have nothing in this thing. Zero dollars to acquire it. A $20 carb and another $15 to $20 in a couple of other parts would have left me with a running mower I could have put out for sale. My profit margin doesn't need to be quite as much as you full time, professional repairmen. However, I do require at least a profit. My primary reason for doing this is to keep a pair of retired hands busy doing something, but I have no intention of refurbishing a mower, then selling it for a loss. I'll take up needlepoint first.

Don't misunderstand me. I am in no way attempting to refute your statements, nor am I attempting to argue. It's quite the opposite. I agree with you that what is happening with parts in this industry is not right.
.

 

[bertsmobile1]

Don't know about the USA but down here every thing has a government mandated 12 month warranty period.
Nearly every retailer has a totally BS price parity guarantee so they get the suppliers to use model numbers ( or even brand names ) specific to the one that they sell thus an identical unit with a different model number will not trigger the price guarantee .
All of the big retailers send their buyers to third world countries to source the goods then put out a supply contract on a local importer which allows another BS claim "most products are locally sourced " to be stated with impunity .
The supplier is then responsible for warranty and as here is zero parts back up they just over order and cover warranty by stripping parts off another new mower or just replacing your duff one with a new one , noting that the replacement is only warranted for the balance of the time remaining.
Once the last mower sold is older than 12 months the remaining stock is sold usually as a single line by auction so it is "as is where is' with no warranty.

Thus parts on a "case by case" basis will depend upon the wholesaler having a mower they can strip for parts or replace .
When Lowes & Woolworths combined to launch the Masters chain of hardwear stores ( Westfarmers PL owns 85 % of all hardwear retailers & wholesalers down here ) the local shop used to "donate" all of the lawn & garden equipment that was returned under warranty ( probably claimed full retail value ) to the local Mens Shed on the grounds that they could repair them and give them away but not resell them .
The original purchaser either got a full refund or replacement .
Most of the mowers just needed a simple repair ( like a fresh spark plug ) but the supplier was the one who footed the bill .
Needless to say Masters lost millions for each of the 4 years of operation till it was abandoned .

The simple fact is the highest profit to cost ratio is obtained by purchasing cheap junk and selling for the highest price you can get .
Executives get paid bonuses on profit to equity ratios so under that system wholesaling cheap junk sourced from a third world country will always be dominant .
Those who have not been involved in logistics have no idea about just how expensive it is .
The last warehouse I was involved in running had a fixed cost of $ 2.50 / week for each & every pallet space and we had 20,000 pallet spaces .
A pick cost $ 3.20 for a trolly pick or $ 6.80 for a fork lift pick.
Invoicing ran to around $ 2.00 a hit and then there was freight added to that.
This is why a bolt from a dealer is $ 9.00 where as the exact same bolt from a bolt shop is $ 2.50

This is the reason what Bezos treats his warehouse staff like slaves ( which your government fully endorses ) to cut down those costs.
Now look at your mower and consider that each different part , or assembly of parts is at least one pallet space and you will see why retailing with no support is so profitable and providing parts back up is so expensive .
One of the factors in B & S demise was the massive inventory of basically obsolete slow moving parts which was fine while they were the dominant supplier of engines so the new sales to manufacturers could subsidise the after sales support.
However when they were forced to match the prices of imported engines that had no parts back up their profits dropped drastically.
And when the actual sales numbers fell, the writing was on the wall and B & S will eventually vanish leaving only Vanguard behind .
I have no sympathy for B & S ( or any other manufacturer ) who ceased to manufacture in favour of simply assembling from outsourced parts which actually reduced the total profit in favour of obtaining a higher profit to equity ratio to get bigger onuses and increase the perceived value of the company thus increasing the share price .
Down here we call it " bonus farming "

 

[smhardesty]

https://mowerpartsland.com/?s=Pulsar&post_type=product. I am continuing the qwest I got an owners manual but trying now to do a more in depth search for any real info

I appreciate the help, but you do realize that nearly every part on that site is for a Pulsar generator. Right? And they aren't exactly Pulsar parts. As I understand it, those parts are aftermarket parts that will "replace" the actual Pulsar parts. I'm sure they will do what the vendor says they will do, but I don't think they are selling actual Pulsar parts.

I have spoken with Pulsar's home office, or headquarters, or whatever it is. They told me they don't allow any parts to be sold by anyone OTHER THAN the Pulsar company. All parts are sold directly by Pulsar and not by any dealer.

I'm not trying to dampen your enthusiasm, but I also don't want you or anybody else to waste time trying to find parts for this mower. First, I can promise you I'll never take another one in for any reason. Even though I do this mostly to keep myself busy, I don't need the headaches associated with trying to find parts for them. Also, I'll not be attempting to do anything further with the engine. It's blowing oil out the exhaust in huge quantities. I'll be putting a Briggs engine on the Pulsar deck, IF the bolt pattern is typical. The only part I'll be ordering from Pulsar will be the rear rock guard and that's ONLY if I get the Briggs engine mounted on the deck. I'm sure there are alternate Rick guards from another brand that will easily fit or that can be adapted to work.

So, don't let me discourage you if you're just up for a challenge, but also don't think that I'm in need for more info. I just don't want to cause anybody to go to any great trouble for me on this thing.

 

[smhardesty]

Bert, that's an excellent explanation of the whole picture. More and more manufacturers of all sorts of different products are following that "bottom line" plan for profiting from sales. That's why we are now living on a "throw away" society. Consumers have conformed and are perfectly happy with the whole, "buy cheap and if it breaks, throw it away and buy a new one" way of thinking. Sad, but very true.

 

[TobyU]

Because that cheap carb is less than the parts to repair it. IE, $24 float valve in $17 OEM Honda carb.

Kohler and Briggs are both in the complete component market, ie Briggs complete blower housing with starter assembly because replacement starter spring not available separately. Kohler has a few items in the category with the SH series engines. Then there are the Briggs engines were everything but 1/2 dozen parts are greyed out on the IPL

Would you prefer I replace your $20 carb and $30 labor or repair your carb using a $30 carb kit and $70 for labor. And those are real world numbers. And keep in mind the customer may pay the $50 for the repair not the $100.

Because it is more profitable in the long term of instead of using the time to clean and repair a carb than to replace when that time can be put toward a much larger repair that will cost in the hundreds. Small repairs are not conducive to shop efficiency.

Yes, shop efficiency. I believe I mentioned part of that. I think that's why they stopped rebuilding carbs or overhauling them and just started putting new ones on because it was more efficient. Quicker so they could get on to the next one. As I said they make less money from it but they can move on to bigger jobs like you said.

The same for your example above on $20 carb and $30 repair versus cheaper carb kit and $70 labor.
I was just pointing out that it's odd that the shop started doing this because they actually make more money on the car rebuild/overhaul than they do on the new carburetor because they're not making any killing at all and only a very small markup on the parts themselves.
I think it was all about getting on to the next one because they have well over a hundred lined up to fix at any given time and as you said get those little ones out of the way so you can prioritize and get to the bigger money-making jobs.

Most of my above comments though were not directed towards a shop doing the work. I thought this was a private individual working on their own machine.
My theory for those people is to stop by and replacement carbs and clean out what they have.
That way it's zero money out of their pocket.

You are correct about the further we go in the present and future the parts are becoming more and more complete assemblies and not individual small parts.
Color over the past few years has really gotten bad about selling like a basic and then a more complete carburetor kit and often that's the only way you can get the part you need. So they're getting 15 to $30 when you really only want something that cost $3.50.
I wasn't talking about recoil starting at spring assemblies but internal carburetor parts for the brakes. You can still buy most of the needle and seat and even these come as two separate parts.
I guess it's a good thing and I'll just wish it stays this way because it keeps each individual little part more likely to be available but in reality they should sell the needle and the seat as a complete unit on the cards that have the brass seat pressed in.
Too many people don't even know they're supposed to replace this and they run around slapping a needle valve in and acting like it's a proper fix. It could be it could last for years, it could also last for a day. And of course we have the seat polishers whether it's toothpaste, metal polish, etc.
Not saying it doesn't work but it's still not the right repair.
Just spend the extra 3 minutes, which actually is probably less time than it takes to polish and then clean the seat off again and build you a little tool to remove those seats and just replace the darn thing.
Honda would be an exception or at least different. Briggs will sell you afloat for five or $6 as well to come see. Honda you're right, you can buy a complete card ship to your door for under 20 bucks but try to buy just a float or a needle valve spring etc and you'll probably have 13 to 25 in it.
Kind of like those old Toro Suzuki engines. 15 years ago they wanted $17 for a needle valve!
Just like Kawasaki they think their parts are gold-plated. I mean, they are good.. but still.
I do think we always have to make the distinction whether this is a commercial shop operation with a line of work behind something charging a pretty high hourly rate for labor or if it's somebody fixing their own equipment.
Also, and many of these instances if it's your own equipment especially or if you work on a lot of them, you can maintain a good selection of used parts that will work just fine for what you need.