On May 24, 10:29*am, dpb wrote:
On 5/24/2011 8:40 AM, jamesgangnc wrote:
...

For what it's worth I've never replaced one of those carbs on any of
my gas powered equipment. *Simply cleaning it and replacing the
gaskets has always been enough. *That yours improved with gas additive
suggests the same.

I've had to replace them on some equipment but it's generally after 20+
(to maybe 40 or more even) years. *Old Zenith and the like will wear
around the throttle shaft so that air inleakage eventually becomes
intolerable and uncontrollable. *There's no effective repair as they're
not bushed and unless one has suitable machine shop facilities to do so
oneself, the expense of paying somebody to do the custom bushing is more
than the new carb by quite a bit.

Unfortunately, many of these old guys are now out of production and
replacements aren't available so if I outlive the current versions it'll
be a harder route...

Anything new enough that it had a Honda engine wouldn't be a likely
candidate for needing a carb replacement yet I'd think...

--

Some fine fella in this group mentioned prioritizing their time. In
another forum dedicated to OPE, I asked if they knew of a site that
had step-by-step instructions for cleaning and tuning a Honda engine,
including the carb.

One long time member mentioned that for the $15 cost of a new carb
from Plano, it's hardly worth taking the old one apart and cleaning/
tuning it. Of all the things I'm pretty good at, small engines,
especially carburetors, isn't one of them.

I called Plano and they said their carbs are just bolt on and run.
When I said I'd like a blade, air cleaner and plug for the same mower,
they gave me a pretty good break off the on-line shipping cost,
essentially throwing in free shipping on the blade, by far the
heaviest item in the order.

So for the amount of time I'd spend cleaning and (trying to) tune the
old carb, I'll just toss the new one on and be done.

Any extra time I spend cleaning and storing the old one will basically
be play time.

How's that for some good old fashioned rationalization? ;-)