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That Fucking Whipper Snipper

2020-12-09T20:36

About a year ago I bought a whipper snipper. Just so you know what I'm talking about, these are all the names that this thing is known as. I'll be calling it a whipper snipper because I'm Australian and that's what I call it.

> A string trimmer, also called a "weed eater", "weed whacker", "weed whip", "line trimmer", "brush cutter", "whipper snipper"[1] (in Australia, Canada, and South Africa) or "strimmer" (in the UK and Ireland), is a gasoline, electric, or battery powered garden tool for cutting grass, small weeds, and groundcover.

String Trimmer at Wikipedia

So anyway, about a year ago I bought one of these things thinking that it would be ideal to learn how engines work. Somehow I've never needed to own a lawnmower or whipper snipper or chainsaw or pretty well anything with an engine except cars and a motorbike, and for those I sent them to mechanics or my old man to fix. Engine parts for a whipper snipper are super cheap and it's probably the most basic engine I could learn from.

I bought a 20 year old Stihl FS80 which wasn't working. I pulled it apart, cleaned the carby, changed the spark plug and got it running. And for a few months it ran well. Then one day it just conked out while I was using it. This was in about February and was the beginning of my troubles.

I tried to get it started again — pulling at the string over and over. It would start then splutter to a stop. Since the carby was the only adjustment and was all I kind of new about the thing, I adjusted that to try to improve things. It didn't really work.

I kept trying to adjust and start and then it was flooded and then I would air it out and then try something else. I did this for a few hours until the string pull thing broke and stopped winding the cord back up. That was the end of that.

I ordered another spring and waited a week for it to arrive.

I took the whipper snipper to the shed to replace the spring but I couldn't undo the screw that held it in. It was way too tight. I didn't want to damage the screw because I didn't have another one. I tried the impact driver but I was afraid to give it a good wallop because I didn't know how strong it was. Until I had it apart, I couldn't see how it was held together. I ended up damaging the screw anyway and didn't really get anywhere.

So then I decided to order another whole start string/spring assembly thing. While waiting for that to arrive, Melbourne entered a COVID lock-down which prevented me from going further than 5km from my home. The whipper snipper was 20km away in my shed. So the job was stopped again, this time for three months.

When lock-down lifted, I couldn't remember where I put the assembly that had arrived months earlier. When I did eventually find it, it was the wrong part.

This had become too much, and my partner was complaining about why that fucking whipper snipper is still broken. I gave up and took the original string/spring assembly thing to the mower shop to fix for me. They did that and I picked it up a few days ago.

So yesterday, I was able to put it back on the mower and continue trying to work out why this thing doesn't start. The theory I'd devised is that maybe the vibrations had caused the carby or idle adjustment to move. I started there, but I don't think it was the problem. I checked the spark plug lead. I'm not certain it's making a good connection. After reseating it, it started right up, and spluttered to a stop.

I continued in this way for about an hour until the new string/spring thing broke again.

I still have the original spring I bought that I couldn't get in the first time around… somewhere. I pulled the starter lead off to make sure that I could undo the screw holding in the spring, and to just make sure that it wasn't something easy. But I dropped one of the mounting screws into the grass and after half an hour of looking, still couldn't find it.

So I'm ready to give up on this fucking thing — take it to the shop and get them to make it run. I'll learn about engines another time. Maybe engines just aren't for me.

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