Steel rope pull starter - amazingly durable? Not really. ALSO Problems starting Acme

[jcraftenworth]

The steel rope on my bcs is more durable than the housing surrounding it. It grinds into this housing, producing sharp jaggies for the steel rope to rub and hang on. And not so long, your steel rope will fray and cut as a result. You could replace the metal rope retainer and/or the spool housing, but steel rope ain't as great as I thought, causing its own set of annoying problems.

So having bought used, I don't know the usage or maintanence history of this aln330 acme 10hp engine. Was made in the 90s apparently but the tractor isn't all beat to ****, so I don't know how many hours on the engine. When I got it last fall, seemed to start on 2-3 pulls. Has gotten progressively worse after a couple weeks use, and now to the point I can't start it at all. It fires, it chugs a few times but it just will not keep going. If I put in an olympic athlete effort I have started it in this condition a couple times over the last week. Unfortunately I am damaging my steel rope pullcord everytime I do this, and wearing myself out so much it's hard to be productive the rest of the day.

So I Drained all gas as I had borrowed some from my landlords big tank, which could have been 6 mos old. I put in fresh purchased ethanol free 91 octane. replaced spark plug. Tried some ether starting fluid blown into the air intake. I sometimes got a few loud pops from that but other than that I didn't notice that the starter fluid changed anything. I'm gonna feel really stupid if I replace this engine and it turns out it's just the stupid safety handle switch that is preventing me from running (although if that was the case, I'll probably never know it lol). All that safety handle and switch stuff had been working so I'm not sure why it wouldn't be now, but I should ask. If you disconnect the little plastic leads that hook onto that handlebar safety switch on the engine, will the engine then run, or does it default to "engine kill" mode if it is not hooked up with all the leads connected?

I guess I'm gonna go out there at dusk and see if I can remove the sparkplug and assure myself it is sparking well. Seems like it must be sparking as it fires when I pull for a second or two, just not enough to sustain ignition. ETA: I pull the plug and grounded to the frame, pulled the ropestarter and it sparked very brightly.

I'm thinking of just replacing the engine with one of those euro style kohler 9.5 hp engines joel sells, and definitely getting the battery start. I'm pretty sure right now, if I had battery start, even in the "de-tuned" state of my engine from when I bought it, it would start from a battery. It's just not possibly to hand crank it vigorously enough. Now that it's planting season, I'd accept any start I can get and worry about engine tuning later.

 

[Captain Dirty]

I have an Acme 330WB on my Goldoni. There may be some differences between the Goldoni and BCS editions. Mine, built in the 80's, is a real third-world machine; I burn off old, two-stroke fuel mix without problem in that engine. As you apparently have spark, I recommend you clean the fuel system, strainer, valve, sediment bowl, and blow out the carb jets.

The engine runs rough when chaff clogs the cooling fins around the exhaust valve. It is a bit of a chore to get to and remove the shroud on the cylinder to effectively remove all the chaff.

My handlebar safety "dead man" lever and the manual "kill switch" are long since broken. As I recall, at least on the Goldoni, the switches shorted the ignition, their absence allow the motor to run. You can still press (and hold) the red button on the points case to stop.

My steel cable recoil starter wore the brass bushing, frayed the cable, and the shocks of catching on repeated pullings broke other parts. As you mentioned "ropestarter" I presume you can remove the recoil starter and use a rope on the flywheel pulley. With a long rope you can give a long, vigorous pull, and the extra time it takes to hand rewind the rope on the pulley will give you time to rest before the next pull. Supposedly the presence of the recoil starter indicates an automatic compression release on the camshaft to ease your starting efforts. Good luck!

 

[jcraftenworth]

I have an Acme 330WB on my Goldoni. There may be some differences between the Goldoni and BCS editions. Mine, built in the 80's, is a real third-world machine; I burn off old, two-stroke fuel mix without problem in that engine. As you apparently have spark, I recommend you clean the fuel system, strainer, valve, sediment bowl, and blow out the carb jets.

The engine runs rough when chaff clogs the cooling fins around the exhaust valve. It is a bit of a chore to get to and remove the shroud on the cylinder to effectively remove all the chaff.

My handlebar safety "dead man" lever and the manual "kill switch" are long since broken. As I recall, at least on the Goldoni, the switches shorted the ignition, their absence allow the motor to run. You can still press (and hold) the red button on the points case to stop.

My steel cable recoil starter wore the brass bushing, frayed the cable, and the shocks of catching on repeated pullings broke other parts. As you mentioned "ropestarter" I presume you can remove the recoil starter and use a rope on the flywheel pulley. With a long rope you can give a long, vigorous pull, and the extra time it takes to hand rewind the rope on the pulley will give you time to rest before the next pull. Supposedly the presence of the recoil starter indicates an automatic compression release on the camshaft to ease your starting efforts. Good luck!

thanks fort he advice captain. I'm not really much of a mechanic, are there any generic or specific small engine vids I should watch to familiarize myself with these procedures?

 

[Captain Dirty]

Are there any generic or specific small engine vids I should watch to familiarize myself with these procedures?

Short answer is I don't know. I started gaining my experience from relatives, neighbors, and trial and error long before the internet came along. I will Google a repair, etc. and that experience will tell me rather quickly if I want to accept or reject the advice of the video, but I don't flag favorites for future reference. Ya gotta pay your dues, and old equipment is very good at collecting them. Frequent cell phone photos are faster than sketches made during dis-assembly to aid with re-assembly.

 

[jcraftenworth]

Short answer is I don't know. I started gaining my experience from relatives, neighbors, and trial and error long before the internet came along. I will Google a repair, etc. and that experience will tell me rather quickly if I want to accept or reject the advice of the video, but I don't flag favorites for future reference. Ya gotta pay your dues, and old equipment is very good at collecting them. Frequent cell phone photos are faster than sketches made during dis-assembly to aid with re-assembly.

well I watched a few small engine carb cleaning videos, one guy just basically took it off, shot it with degreaser, worked an extended wire through some parts and blew it all out with an airgun and it solved his problems. He didn't remove the float and pin with a punch because he said you can break things and they aren't easy or sometimes are impossible to replace. He didn't give it a thorough breakdown and reassembly just tried to clean and blow some crud out. I might be able to do something like that, I guess I'll give it a shot before I drop 700 on a new engine.

 

[jcraftenworth]

well here's the update. after fresh fuel, fresh sparkplug, cleaned and blew out the carburetor, put on the choke and gave it about 5 pulls, it still didn't start, then my steel pullstarter cord finally got chewed threw and broke. So I removed all that recoil housing, got the right size deep socket to fit on the flywheel nut, hooked that up to my cordless drill, put it on it's faster drill setting, and after some cranking, that DID get it to start. Like I said before, it was so close to starting, if I had an electric start I thought it'd go and it turns out I was right as I got the redneck small engine starter rocking now. I did get some help adjusting the idle so it's more steady at full acceleration, and maybe it's starting a little easier than before (but hard to tell since I'm not ropestarting it). I'm gonna conclude that the tough starting problems are into the engine as I think I have pretty much eliminated everything else. Anyway I'm happy to be able to start it and finish my garden planting. It seems to run ok once it's going, and I'm able to power my 30" tiller at the deepest setting without any problems.

I'm still thinking about replacing the engine. Here's a question, maybe especially for farmerboybill because I know he has experience installing and running both gas and diesel engines. If I get another engine, should I get the 9.5hp kohler that is a direct replacemnet for the acme engines. With electric start, that's gonna run a little over 700 dollars. OR, I was also considering putting on a diesel. Joel recommended against it because he said the Yanmar 10hp is too heavy, the adapter kit needed to run one will push it forward another 1.5" (making it feel even a bit more heavy) AND he says the spline type pto like my bcs 737 shouldln't go above 9hp diesel, where the yanmar is 10hp. But I thought, wow 1 hp more, how big of a deal could that really be. The real rub is I don't want to fork over 2000 dollars for a name brand diesel engine, so I was gonna buy the chinese Yanmar 10hp clone. I can get one for 300 bucks shipped with electric start hookups, the adapter kit from earthtools is 300 bucks (the chinese diesel yanmar is cheaper than normal as some guy is clearing out a dozen or so right now on ebay, others sell same engine for 900 bucks and I've read internet threads where people have gotten them for 4 to 5 hundred bucks but I was unable to find a non-ebay supplier at that price point), and I'll need to buy a new engine bumper, another 100, so basically the cost for either the Kohler gas 9.5hp or chinese diesel 10hp will be the same or pretty close, and both will be electric start capable which I really want.

If I buy a new engine, which way should I go?

 

[leonz]

Before you jump to a new powerplant for the 2 wheel mule-


Set your plug gap with a fresh plug to 25 thousanth's of an inch and try that.

If that fails you I would seriously look at the Hatz air cooled diesels with auto and or manual decompression as they
match just about every gas small engine made.

The Hatz family has quite a few dealers here in the states and they have an extensive gas engine cross reference list
with dimensions on their home pages list of engines that they can cross over to.

 

[freedomlives]

Lombardini i-service

The repair manual is available here for download, albeit it in Italian.