Hey Glort, strangely enough the local machine shop also repairs/services motor vehicles. They have the NRMA franchise to tow/recover damaged vehicles. Very lucrative business considering how many hoons and f*ckwits there are on the roads these days.
I have also had big problems with fuel lines going hard and brittle. Not sure if the problem is with the fuel or cheaply imported fuel lines. I only ever run E10 in one lawn mower that is reasonably new and specifies it as the fuel of choice. It does not appear to be any more or less reliable than any of my other equipment. E10 is probably OK provided you don`t let it stand too long, once it has absorbed a whole lot of moisture out of the atmosphere it will cause corrosion to any metal parts it comes in contact with. The lawn mower in question has a plastic fuel tank, plastic and nylon carburetor and polyethylene fuel lines, nothing to corrode.
I have four chainsaws of various sizes and makes. One of them I made the mistake of putting E10 in. It ran perfectly well until I wanted to refill it and couldn`t get the fuel filler cap off. Apparently this is a common problem with these saws, the ethanol in the fuel causes the plastic cap to swell! Once I did get the cap off with a wrench I left it open overnight, the ethanol evaporated and the cap fits perfectly. If you are looking for chainsaw parts for Husqvarna or Stihl check out a company called Farmertec in Singapore, the prices are about a quarter of what you will pay here.
Hi Mike, pretty sure you are right about Honda having stuff made in China. Nothing wrong with that, the Chinese are perfectly capable of making very good quality machinery. The mistake people make is in trying to drive the price of components down too low, at which point the manufacturer will have to start cutting corners and reducing quality.
One trick I always use on Chonda engines is to run them for a few hours and then re-torque all the bolts including the cylinder head. I haven`t had to replace a head gasket since I started doing this. One of my Chinese Davey pumps leaked from day one, striped it and found that some idiot had put the ceramic seals in back to front, it`s run like a champion ever since.
I have another one which I need to connect up to the dam, This one will be used to irrigate fruit trees and will have a diverter valve to pump water up to a sprinkler system on the roof, in the event of another bush fire. Not sure I`m up to digging trenches at the moment so it will have to wait.
Amazing how many of these motors, pumps, chainsaws and generators get thrown out by incompetent home owners every time there is a council cleanup. I guess if it doesn`t start first go they just chuck it out and buy a new one. Great for the Chinese economy and very bad for ours, can`t be doing much for the environment either.
Bob
Bob