Outdoor Power Equipment (Lawn Mowers, Snow Blowers, Chain Saws and more) Discussions

I have a Stihl HS-45 trimmer that is a few years old. When I went to start it this spring it floods. It would start and run if you set the choke open and held the throttle wide open. It has a Zama carburetor that I have had apart. I can see nothing wrong in the carb and after putting it back together it ran as it should for a few minutes then went right back to flooding. My question is can you replace the carb with something other than the POS that came with it? From reading around it seems that Stihl has quite a problem with their carburetors. I have a blower and trimmer of the same brand but have not had any problems with them.

Okay, Here is an update. I have had the thing apart a couple of times and everything looks fine. I went by a local outdoor power equipment shop Saturday because the owner had called for me to fix a truck of his (I do paintless dent removal) and showed him the thing. He seemed to think the same thing as you about the carb not being a bad one. It's a Zama S70 so its the newer version with both H/L adjustments. He has a tech that he says can make it work right and wanted me to bring it in Monday on the trimmer. I went back home and put the thing back on and started it up. It ran the way it is supposed to so I added more fuel and took it out to use it. It ran fine the whole time I used it. Now I am perplexed about what to do. I would guess if it was something under or around the needle, its gone now. I did have the needle out a couple of times and no wear at all. It's probably not had 6 tanks of fuel ran through it since it was new.