Rebuild a Weedeater Carb

I Pull and Pull and the
Weedeater Won't Go

Not the first time I've been down this road with this 15-year-old plus device. The last time I rebuilt the Carburetor on the old Weedeater was about five years ago and paid way too much for the rebuild kit.

This time though I did a Net search for the specific Walbro Carburetor and low and behold came up a very reasonable price and great service from Brett Zambotti at Unique Lawn Care Parts. Visit his web site at uniquelawncareparts.ecrater.com.

We will always recommend web sites and folks that we do business with who do a great job. There are plenty out there that do not, so when we find them we love to pass them along.

The rebuild of the little Carb is not a difficult task but you should be prepared for very small parts, somewhat delicate and a very small spring that you do not want to lose.

First drain the tank of the gas and remove the gas line from the carburetor. Be sure to check that the line is in good shape not to mention the small in tank filter. It does resemble a fish tank aerator in its looks. Hard as a rock with very small perforations to allow the gas in. A good method for checking the flow is to loosen the gas cap and see if any gas will flow from the line. Be sure to catch the gas in a container. You can reuse the gas if it is fresh, by pouring it back in to the mix tank.

Remove the carburetor from the Weedeater housing this generally entails four Allen head screws. One set holds the air filter and choke on the carburetor choke plate. The second set will hold the Carb unit itself. Carefully twist the Carb in such a way as to dislodge the throttle yoke. It is pretty heavy duty, just take care so as not to bend anything.

Spread out newspaper on a large work surface. The Carb is small and so are the parts. The large area will help if something appears to go missing. Trust me on this, the bigger the area to find something is better than floor searching.

You will note that one side of the Carb has a large screw while the other has four small screws. You decide where to start. Once you begin to remove the parts lay them out in the order that you begin to remove them in, even the old gaskets and the small parts you will replace.

The small needle valve can be a pain to reinstall with the small spring, just take your time. Install all parts that come with the Carb rebuild kit. Even if you feel that it does not need replacing. The small diaphragms and flap valves can be worn even if they look great.

Now that the entire Carb is laying like a shell with parts all around, remove the needle screws for the high and low idle settings. Count the number of turns it took to remove, generally this is 1 to 11/2 turns from full in. One screw will be longer than the other, this is generally the high idle screw.

I recommend a good quality Carb cleaner for spraying down the unit. When you do this hold the Carb in a clean rag and wear safety glasses, as a small squirt in the eye will burn like hell and may actually cause damage to your eye. So be careful. Carb cleaner will dry on its own.

Be careful about using compressed air as you may have missed a small part and once it's gone, it's gone. The rag will help in catching any thing left behind.

Reassemble the little dude and take your time. Be sure to carefully inspect all the small orifices before inserting any parts.

Big note here DO REPLACE the small screen that feeds the needle valve port, this will contain a plethora of built up oils and residue. Be sure to not over look this when cleaning the Carb.

Good luck, have fun and take your time. I realize that this is not a step-by-step, just some helpful advice. Hopefully it will build your confidence so that you can rebuild the mechanical things around your place and save some big bucks in the process.