Doing Your Own 2-Cycle Carburetor Tune-up

 If you've ever owned a piece of lawn equipment with a 2-cycle gasoline engine – a blower, weed-whacker, or chain saw, for instance – you probably already know that the things are finicky about their fuel. Sometimes getting them started can turn even the mildest-mannered suburban dad into a raving maniac. Trust me; I know: I've been known to say on more than one occasion that I will never buy a gasoline-powered weed-whacker again. That was, however, before I bought my own Carburetor Adjustment Tool Kit.

In my experience, the two most common fuel problems with 2-cycle carbs are varnish in the fuel and a carb that is out of adjustment. If you're lucky, you can clean out the varnish with additives, but the adjustment? That almost always requires a special tool, and the tool differs from carburetor brand to brand (Zama, Walbro, etc.). You almost always have two little pegs sticking up from the carburetor housing (see image, above left), but the shape of the tool can be one of nine or ten different configurations. This kit contains nine of them, fitting (almost) all carbs – apparently some Walbro carbs have a 22-tooth spline instead of 21-tooth. Go figure.

You can find instructions on YouTube for tuning a carburetor; in short you adjust the mixture (ratio of fuel to air) and then adjust the idle speed to keep the engine from dying at idle. Without these little tools, however, you're at the mercy of your local small-engine repair guy.

If you, like me; have cleaned the carb and air filter, added fresh fuel, and changed the spark plug but the cussed thing still won't start and keep running, a ten-dollar investment may be just the thing you need. All these kits are pretty much the same (nine different configurations), so don't get hung up on the brand. I actually bought mine at the local BigBox store (Menard's), and it's precisely the same.

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