gibson981

Just wanted to give a quick update to those who helped me. We got buried in 2ft of snow last night. Ran the machine for 3 hrs this morning and not one shutdown. Earlier I had replaced the condenser and the kill wire, and cleaned up some oil on the points. Very pleased. During the last hour or so, it started to surge alittle bit, and the power seemed down. Going to clean and reseal the carb and see if that fixes it. Also the muffler blew out. Alittle unsure of that repair as the remaining pipe seems pretty fused to the engine. I'll worry about that another day, now time for a beer.

trouts2 wrote:

Right -- maybe I described it wrong.  I've read the procedure in the manual, and the part of concern was finding BTDC and the use of the dial indicator.  Once you get that, your right, the rest doesn't seem bad.

I found a post on another forum where someone used a section of PVC or deep socket to install the seal, both of those seem like good substitutions for the factory tool.  Still need to know about timing -- if the stator comes off to replace the seal will i need to redo the timing?  Can I mark the position if it currently mounted and reinstall in the same spot, or will that not sufice?   thanks.

Thanks for the replies, heres an update after I had a chance to look at things last night.

First off, when I opened up the stator, there was oil at the bottom.  not alot, but enough to put a film on all the parts.  Based on how hard the flywheel was to get off, i dont think anyone has been in there for a while, so hard to tell how bad the leak is. 

The condenser was if not original, very old.  the points looked ok, but needed to pickup some feeler gauges this morning to check the gap.  connections had a reasonable amount of corrosion, plus crud due to the oil leak.  found the kill line, which runs off of the throttle position.  wire sheath looked worn in areas.  so heres the plan:

     -clean all parts to remove oil.

     -replace condenser, and regap points

     -replace kill line with new wire

     -clean connections with emory cloth

A couple questions:

     -are the 3 tools shown in the manual (oil seal driver, protector and remover) required to replace the seal?

     -if I remove the stator will I need to retime the ignition?  reading through the process, this is something i'd like to avoid if possible

I'm feeling optimistic that fixing these things will improve how the engine runs (and like I said originally, it ran well up to this year).  If it doesn't do it, on to the carb....

Thanks for the replies and suggestions so far.  I was aware of the issue with the fuel cap, so I loosened it after first time it died.  No key on the blower to kill the engine, but I'll look it over to make sure nothing else that could shut it off. 

I got the manual off the internet, and will start checking out the rest of the things.  I forgot to mention in my originial post, the compression was 80psi when I checked it dry.

Thanks again