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

One guy from MSP area is selling his 15 year old HS621 (the guy from Wayzata MN who hates HomeDepot and GC engines) for $450.  Another one is selling his one year old HS520 for $400 with one year remaining on the warranty.  HS621 is a nice machine but is it really worth more than nearly new HS520?  Replacement parts for HS520 is about 50% of the cost of HS621. What do I recommend for a friend?  I think the HS621 from that guy is simply way too high (if it were as good as aa335 then it is a different story).  HS520 seems like an economical option.  What do you guys think?

That's quite a supply. 

We have a couple zero clearance wood fireplaces in our home that we use primarily for ambiance or emergency heat.

We also heat our cottage with wood and put up maybe a cord or two a year.  Don't go out much in the winter anymore so, don't use as much as we used to.  I generally cut and split my own.  I used a splitting maul for 30 years but some of the wood was murder to split by hand. 

Most of the wood I get is blow down so I have no control over the size of the trees.  I've had trees over 30" across and knotty as hell.  Wicked stuff to split by hand.  Earlier this year we had a wind event that knocked down some nice aspen trees approx. 16" to 18" in diameter.   So I bucked up a few trailer loads.  Splitting wet poplar that size in summer by hand is almost futile.  The axe literally bounces out of the wood and sometimes water spurts out of it.  Dried poplar is just as bad but opposite.  The wood is very reluctant to split and the axe gets stuck in the piece.  I had a stack of large dried stuff from last year that I just gave up on and with the new supply, I decided it was time to get a log splitter so I picked up a used one in excellent shape for a very good price.  It's a gas powered 24 ton North Star.  I split all of that difficult wood in an hour or less then split a bunch for my neighbour.  

When I think of all the time I spent flogging myself senseless splitting difficult wood, I have to wonder what I was thinking when a log splitter would cut my labour by 90%.  It's so easy that I actually look forward to splitting wood!   Even the wife gets in on the act.  I do the loading, she works the splitter.  The benefits aren't just split wood.  I don't spend the whole day swinging an eight pound maul so I can spend more time fishing/hunting/relaxing and I don't wake up the next day feeling like I spent the night tumbling in a cement mixer.     

I prefer to buy c/s/d (if the price is right) but sometimes I'll buy a truckload of 16" - 18" long rounds and split them. I live in a remote area where there is no natural gas lines so your choices for heat are (for the most part) oil, propane or wood. I have oil which is currently running about $3:50 or so per gallon. Before I got my wood stove, I would use on average about 800 - 1000 gallons/year - my water is heated via the oil burner so it fires all year long. You can see how it adds up pretty quickly. I can heat my house with wood for about $600 - $800 vs. $2800 - $3500 for oil so it's definitely worth my time and effort.

MN_Runner wrote:

Hi MN_Runner,

Got half an inch of snow on the day after I came back to the US but that was not enough to pull the snow blower out.

If we get snow I will take pictures and post.

We got about 2" of wet snow on the eve of Dec 31.  I blew the snow with my 928 because it was too wet and I did not want to shovel it.  This Monday I helped a family friend buy a brand new Honda HS520.  She really liked the size and how simple it was to use.  I told her if she ever thought the HS520 is too small, I was willing to trade my 928 for her 520+cash.  I still think having two blowers are the best option.  2" wet snow would have been perfect for a SS machine. 

We got approximately 5 inches of snow 2 days ago.Finally I was able to use my HS35 snowblower.

It met my expectations.I forgot changing the angle on the shoot, that threw some snow at our neighbor's fenced-in yard and also on the walls of our house. I think the height it threw snow was about 12 ft.

However HS621 did not throw much snow.Probably/hopefully because of worn-out paddles.

Never had the choice. I bought a used HS621 which will only run with choke almost full, then it just stalled today under a little snow load here in Detroit. Anybody know where to get a cheap knockoff carb for this machine? Also, to pull the carb, do I have to take the shroud/engine cover off the top? If so, any tips on easy shroud/engine removal? This machine seems pretty quiet to me, and looks pretty cool. Hope I can get it working well. Thanks for any help.

@barne,

why don't you start a new thread asking for HS621 service diagrams.  there are a lot of people with HS621 and may have the service manual to share with you.

barne wrote:
I've heard people buying knock offs GX160 engines but put on genuine Honda carburetor.  You've got the real GX engine, why put on a knockoff carb???  These knockoff carbs can be found on Ebay.

Anyways, the carb is accessible from the bottom without removing the cover.  I would start looking at cleaning jets, checking governor linkage/springs.  I would work on the existing carb before giving up on it.

Thanks a lot, aa335. I guess I WILL try to clean up the carb I have. But was tempted to just slap on a knockoff carb after reading somewhere here on Abbysguide about a guy who had trouble cleaning his HS621 carb, then found a $12 knockoff carb which worked great. Here's my plan. (Never messed with a carb before so could be interesting.) Will drain the fuel, then will tip machine forward, leaning up onto its chute to see if I can wrench out the carb from the bottom (not real confident about making this step work). If that works, I'll go at things with some Gumout, poking a thin wire through various carb passages if possible, then slap it all back together and hope to run without choke full on. If that doesn't improve things, I might try higher octane fuel. Might be back on here in a day or so asking where to buy new carb gaskets. If still running on full choke, I might ask for any direct pointer to a decent priced knockoff carb. Don't really feel like spending the $62 for OEM if an approx. $12 knockoff will get me running strong. Thanks again, aa35!

For what it's worth, I doubt that high-octane gas would make any kind of meaningful difference.

Also, for carb gaskets, I bought a rebuild kit for my weedwhacker over the summer. I was a bit surprised when it did not include a new gasket for between the carb and the engine. That one had ripped during disassembly, too. It was a thick-paper type of gasket. So I took it to an auto parts store and bought a roll of the same type of gasket material, for about $5. I traced out the old gasket and cut a replacement out of the new roll, it worked great.

I did the same thing recently for the carb on another engine, using the same roll of material. No problems. You can probably buy the exact replacement gasket you need, but if you don't want to wait, or to pay that much, you can probably make your own.