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I let the oil drip off and then wipe the spring dry of oil using a cotton cloth. Some of these can have some surface rust so I treat the rust first and thoroughly dry the spring before soaking it overnight in monograde oil. I should probably zinc plate them or do something for rust prevention. I’m not sure this is a good idea as there’s now no rust proofing on them. On the pawls that squared up with a file I heated them to red hot and dunked them in quenching oil before redressing with the diamond stone. I experimented with using a diamond plate sharpening stone to redress the pawls to a square edge and that’s slow but effective. If a file does work then the pawls are unlikely to have much longevity. On some of the older ones a file won’t work very well because they’re hardened, it just damages the file.
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I square up the edges on pawls to restore grip. In addition some of the same over-lubrication that seems to have happened with the friction washers can flow onto the pawls and cup, further exacerbating grip issues. Once this square edge rounds over you get significantly less grip. The sharp corner of the square edge is what grabs the cup.
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The pawls were originally cut from bar stock square across and barely deburred. The edges wear and are no longer able to bite into the starter cup. The washers need to be clean and dry and any lubrication of other parts kept minimal so it doesn’t flow onto them.Īnother problem is wear on pawls. As has been said above, any oil, grease, silicone spray etc on the friction washers and the mechanism will perform poorly.
ZIP DECOMPRESSOR ZIP
I’ve pulled quite a number mid ‘70’s zip starters apart recently and I've seen a few that people have “lubricated” these are fixable but work poorly. I lost track when I accidentally flipped them out when swapping the parts over to another cowl. Maxwestern, could you explain in detail what order the various washers go on the starter? That's probably got something to do with the partial slipping on mine. Beware, the clips can flick off violently if you remove the exhaust without care. Maybe you need to stuff in more exhaust mesh to the green PT's muffler. It was a wonder it ran at all without the thing screwed in all the way home!
ZIP DECOMPRESSOR FULL
It sounds like you installed the full crank type decompressor valve with the longer neck as the short PT type is sealed. It led to the plastic height detent teeth used for years after. The mark 2 has a dodgy height adjuster that lets go as you are mowing! Oh right! I misread your original post and thought it said you got a VC -160. Could this be a sign of stiffening or something else? When pulling them normally, they don't seem to want to come out straight away. Hi Max, now that you mention it, it DOES take a hard pull to get the pawls to come out. I always liked the look of the white PT's and the white Vortex's. The sound of this thing is kind of like Bathurst on a good day, but many don't appreciate the sound like I do The old green machine 1984 PT is also still rocking along fine, it rarely gets used after savage looks from my neighbours. And the decomp on it cannot be taken apart, so I took one of my spares I have been picking up off dead mowers along the way, took it apart, and used a service kit to revitalise it before sticking it on the PT and now she is going fine. The new PT that I got from the Bankstown pawn shop is still in great condition, BUT, the decompressor broke off at the stem that fits into the tube! I couldn't believe it and had no idea how it happened. I will fix the starter up and see how she goes from there, but the guy said it was working before it slipped entire. MF, this one is a machine that someone up the mountains wanted gone, nice early 80's Corsair with a twist top pull instead of side pull.