Bizarre B&S rewind spring(s)

Note, that I have solved my immediate problem and am posting here to satisfy my curiosity.

I have a mower with a B&S 128T02-3256 engine. I have downloaded the proper manual. The manual shows a starter with a typical rewind spring, which I have seen and repaired before.

The rope broke inside the starter, so I took it apart. Inside was two springs: one mostly like a normal rewind spring, but not hooked on the inside end, and another about 8 cm spring, with a hook, curved into a U.



Hopefully y'all can see the image.

So the questions are "how in the world is this supposed to work" and how is it supposed to be put back together and tightened after the rope is replaced. Also: what is the purpose of the second spring? (I guess, a kind of shock absorber to help prevent breaking the main spring.)

Again, I have fixed it: by taking the bizarre spring out and putting a proper hook in the main rewind spring.

What you are looking at are two pieces of a broken recoil spring. Not two separate springs. Don’t know how you fixed it, but time to replace the two with one good one.

Thanks for the quick reply.

All three ends of the two springs are finely formed/cut/ground, showing no usual signs of having been broken. The end of the main spring is rounded and ground. The end of the small spring is sharply curved and evenly forked with a 2-3 mm space, again showing none of the uneveness of a break. The main spring shows some signs of rubbing where the 2 forks of the end of the other spring rubbed at times.

If there is enough interest, I will take it apart again and post pictures of the spring ends.

I know that my Troy Bilt string trimmer has two springs. Except they are separate and not in the exact same place.

It was so difficult to tension properly that I just ended up spending the $15 on a brand new recoil assembly. Much cheaper than spending more hours on it, after spending an hour or two on it already.

Re: Bizarre B&S rewind spring(s) - one broken spring

I took a much closer look at the short end. Yes, it is one spring that broke.



The very short radius of the broken end (not possible at normal temperatures) had me confused. After cleaning, the end shows obvious
signs of heating, perhaps to red hot. After the rope broke, I continued to run the mower for some time. The spring may have rubbed against the shaft of the starter and broke while running or when I turned it off.

Thank you for your time. I apologize for not looking more closely, sooner.

No need to apologize, unless things are disassembled you never see the complete picture. Service techs would have seen your picture many, many times and recognized the problem immediately. When the rope broke, the spring recoiled with such force, that it broke and recoiled into itself. Replacement part number is probably 710270, which is the one most common to their mower engines.