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I have a ryobi cs26 weed eater that won't stay running. I haven't ran it in probably 8 months or so, and I should have known better. First thing I did was dispose of the old gas and also pulled apart the carb to see if anything was gunked up and it was fairly clean except for the little mesh filter screen, so I cleaned that out and put it back together. If I choke the engine and give a couple of pulls, the engine attempts to start and once I switch to full throttle, it will run for about 3-5 seconds and dies. In order to get it to run for another 3-5 seconds, I have to choke it again and once again give it a few pulls. Then the cycle continues. Never able to get it to run for more than 5 seconds, and I did this for probably 45 minutes.

Not sure if this is it, but the only thing that has stopped my 21 year-old Echo string trimmer is the spark arrestor getting plugged up.

Not hard to check. Take your muffler apart and see how it looks. If you can't see daylight clearly through it, either clean it or throw the thing away.

Very first thing I would check is the fuel filter in the tank then fuel lines for splits etc, then give a carb tune. If you need more details on how just let me know ?

Read the plug and see what you can. If starved a new plug should not have black fluffy deposits. Crud may be blocking the small fuel passage ways into the carb throat. Does the engine run on the intermediate choke setting and what is outside temp when you tried to start it?

Get a can of starter fluid and an in line spark tester.
Hook up the spark tester remove the air filter squirt some starter fluid down the carb and start the trimmer.
Hold the shaft in a vice so you have both hands free.
continually give it some short squirts of starter fluid to see if you can keep it running, remembering a big squirt will flood the engine and kill it off.
Watch the spark tester at the same time .
If you can keep it running with the fluid and the spark tester seems to be flashing in sync with the motor then you have a fuel supply problem .
Before you ri the carb apart again, hook up an alternate fuel supply preferably from a tank suspended above the trimmer.
Problem goes away then it is new filter and fuel line time.
No difference then it is back into the carb.
Usually they need new gaskets very time they get pulled apart and because of the cost of the parts comparred to the cost of my time I do diaphragms as well.
If OTOH the spark light goes out while the engine is still spinning you have an ignition problem.
First check the switch by removing it.
Next is to check for breaks in the insulation allowing the control wire to short out against the body some where.
Last is to change the ignition module.
Ryobi parts are a bit problematic as Ryobi outsorce most of their manufacture, however if you like the tool then fix it.

cpurvis said:

Not sure if this is it, but the only thing that has stopped my 21 year-old Echo string trimmer is the spark arrestor getting plugged up.

Not hard to check. Take your muffler apart and see how it looks. If you can't see daylight clearly through it, either clean it or throw the thing away.

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Could a clogged spark arrestor be causing my older Echo SRM2100 (or 2200 cant remember off hand) to run well but after about 20-30 minutes or so start to bog down and want to stall when I give it gas? Someone said to loosen the gas cap but even if I take it off, it doesn't help.

Truckdriver09 said:

I have a ryobi cs26 weed eater that won't stay running. I haven't ran it in probably 8 months or so, and I should have known better. First thing I did was dispose of the old gas and also pulled apart the carb to see if anything was gunked up and it was fairly clean except for the little mesh filter screen, so I cleaned that out and put it back together. If I choke the engine and give a couple of pulls, the engine attempts to start and once I switch to full throttle, it will run for about 3-5 seconds and dies. In order to get it to run for another 3-5 seconds, I have to choke it again and once again give it a few pulls. Then the cycle continues. Never able to get it to run for more than 5 seconds, and I did this for probably 45 minutes.

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my guess would be the carb is gunked up. there are some tiny holes in there and they can clog easily if it was stored with gas still in it. taking these things off and apart isn't hard, just try and remember how they were together so you can put it back together correctly. take photos of each step with your phone to use as a guide if you get stuck or confused...lol it works well for me a lot of times. lol clean everything with some carb cleaner spray, I have been told not to but... I push a thin piece of wire through all the holes and where the gas lines go to unclog them then I spray carb cleaner through each one to blow out and dirt or gum deposits. they say wire can scratch the inside of these holes and make things worse but I use copper wire, the copper, at least in my mind, is too soft to scratch the carb up any and I have not had any issues with this and I have did this to all sorts of small engines for years... lol right now im messing with one of my troy built whackers carb but im thinking this carb is spotless so its gotta be some thing else that's going on in my whacker...

And I think mechanic mark suggested the tie wraps (bagged bread) which are plastic coated. Kind of like a kinder and gentler roter rooter. Also ( I have not taken one apart) there may be "Welsh plugs" which are the ends of the thru-drillings in the carb body. These can be pushed out for better "rifle-barrel" cleaning. I read here that these plugs are available for tap- in replacement. I also once read of using fish sinker (lead). Have not tried either.

motoman said:

And I think mechanic mark suggested the tie wraps (bagged bread) which are plastic coated. Kind of like a kinder and gentler roter rooter. Also ( I have not taken one apart) there may be "Welsh plugs" which are the ends of the thru-drillings in the carb body. These can be pushed out for better "rifle-barrel" cleaning. I read here that these plugs are available for tap- in replacement. I also once read of using fish sinker (lead). Have not tried either.

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wow, a bread tie, that's a great tip! even a piece of regular like a strand off a wire brush or wheel really is going to be hard to get to mess up the ID of one of these chambers, as long as you don't go forcing it into too small a hole or start grinding away at it instead of just gently pushing it through, you should be ok. I have yet to mess up one yet... lol

zacker01 said:

Could a clogged spark arrestor be causing my older Echo SRM2100 (or 2200 cant remember off hand) to run well but after about 20-30 minutes or so start to bog down and want to stall when I give it gas? Someone said to loosen the gas cap but even if I take it off, it doesn't help.

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Yes.

And it isn't hard to find out; only takes a few minutes to remove the spark arrestor.

If exhaust gas can't get out of the combustion chamber of a 2-cycle engine, fuel/air can't get. Any restriction on the exhaust means less power.

zacker01 said:

wow, a bread tie, that's a great tip! even a piece of regular like a strand off a wire brush or wheel really is going to be hard to get to mess up the ID of one of these chambers, as long as you don't go forcing it into too small a hole or start grinding away at it instead of just gently pushing it through, you should be ok. I have yet to mess up one yet... lol

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Or a welding torch tip cleaner. Built for the purpose of cleaning small holes.

zacker01 said:

wow, a bread tie, that's a great tip! even a piece of regular like a strand off a wire brush or wheel really is going to be hard to get to mess up the ID of one of these chambers, as long as you don't go forcing it into too small a hole or start grinding away at it instead of just gently pushing it through, you should be ok. I have yet to mess up one yet... lol

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Rule of thumb about pokeing anything through a carb hole.
Try to scratch the outside of the body with your cleaner.
If you can scratch the outside then you can scratch the inside of the holes.
A strand of copper wire is good a strand of steel wire is bad.
Bread ties are fully annealed and relatively soft but I would never think of using one.
Fishing line is good which is what I think you were remembering sinkers ?

The fish sinker was a memory of diy Welch plug, e.g., carve a small piece of lead for (light) tapping into the end of a gas port if an OEM welch plug is not available. I only read this and have never tried it. Perhaps the bond is kinda like a dentist who hammers a gold foil into your tooth cavity ( well, they used to). Maybe form a little punch on the grinder to perform this? A lead "stake?"

The suggestion of using a gas welding tip cleaner is interesting. Since they are files I would be careful of forcing. But one is cleaning out crud and as long as the jet size is unaffected , so what? These little cleaning rods come in a little aluminum holder and are not expensive. Next trip to shop I will measure the tip diameters and post .

You can lay the welding torch tip down to ignorance and that perverse spreader of ignorance,,,,, Farce Book.
Then that other morons market place , EVILBAY takes over so some ignorant idiot morons buy 10,000,000 sets of welding tip cleaners from China @ 10c each, advertises them @ $ 2.00 each and makes a killing. This causes Evilbay trolls to do the same thing so then the uninformed see 25 vendors selling welding tip cleaners as "jet cleaners" and because they do not know any better actually believe that they are designed to clean out carby jets.
This get reinforced by all the conspiracy clowns who believe every one is out to steel your money by conspiring to make you buy expensive tools or replace expensive parts that can be fixed easily by any villiage idiot using nothing more than what is laying around his feet. So they repeat the same wrong information all over the place and it even ends up places like this.
The down side is stuff in cyber space stays there forever which just goes on to perpetuate incorrect information and turn falacy into fact.

You are correct, a tip cleaner is a file and it makes the holes in your tip bigger which is one reason why you need to replace them from time to time when you can no longer get your flame profile correct.
The sizes of the holes in a cube carb are measures in .00001".
That is how accurate they need to be and even some thing soft like copper wire can damage them if you try hard enough.
Blowing them "clean" with high pressure air can damage then beyond repair by forcing particles so had into the holes they can not be removed.
Similar to testing "pop of pressure" totally meaning less in 99.99999% of the times buy amusing for monkeys to look at, Looks dramatic on a video clip so every village idiot with a video camera will show you haw to test it, but very few bother to tell you what it means and how it affects your engine, because they don't usually know.

Whoever posted the tip cleaner suggestion, I am not trying to vilify or humiliate you. You are simply passing on information that you have gleened from somewhere and were not able to identify it as being absolute garbage. It is not really your fault & you were only trying to help, but please take this myth out of your repetior .
And before some one chirps up with "I used one to fix mine " , it is not impossible to use a tool that has a 99% change of wrecking something to fix it, there is luck & skill to take into account but information on forums such as this need to be given under the assumption that the person reading it has no idea whatsoever of what they are doing .

Well, Bert is hard over on this one and I have never used a gas cleaning tip nor worked on the little carbs. IF the jet outlets are simple aluminum like the carb body maybe the cleaner tips are harmful. IF the passageways are at an angle to the output jet maybe they work. Anyway, you be the judge . In case readers are not familiar here is a picture of mine , made in Canada. The have rounded, polished noses. Reminds me of the devlish tools the dentists use for root canals.:laughing:

FYI, I recommended the tip cleaner.

If I hadn't used it before, I would not make such a recommendation. Just used mine on a 3 hp Briggs this summer. Before that, a Kawaski 250 dirt bike carb.

Maybe you are too ham handed to use one without enlarging holes. I am not.

Also, no hole--not one--in a carburetor has a tolerance in the 1/100,000 inch range, nor can they even be measured in that range.

motoman said:

Well, Bert is hard over on this one and I have never used a gas cleaning tip nor worked on the little carbs. IF the jet outlets are simple aluminum like the carb body maybe the cleaner tips are harmful. IF the passageways are at an angle to the output jet maybe they work. Anyway, you be the judge . In case readers are not familiar here is a picture of mine , made in Canada. The have rounded, polished noses. Reminds me of the devlish tools the dentists use for root canals.:laughing:

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They are dye cast zinc. Tolloson used to do magnesium castings for the racing and aero carbs
very rigid , machines both mechanically & electronically nery cleanly but very easily scratched.
most have no jets as such, just holes precision cut.
they are measured by flow rate not actual size although it would be possible to laser scan each one for accuracy.
sizes are in 1/10's of a thou of an inch , sorry if I got the decimal out of place.
Jet sizes on bigger motors are a lot bigger so there is a lot more space to work in.

Cube carb holes are so fine, soaking in carb cleaner for more than a couple of hours can render them useless.
I use an ultrasonic cleaner and have ruined more than one carb by ovecleaning, Even with a 1/2 strength solution any thing over 1 hour is risky.

No carb maker recommends using a file to work on the jets.
Jets are very sensitive to the surface finish inside the hole.
Back im my race bike ( never really competitive ) tuning days we had a set of very expensive reamers for jet work , should we need a finer adjustment than was available with std jets. And we were playing with dope burning BSA's running mono blocks or TT's and those jet sizes are massive

If this forum is to give advice let's try to make a distincton among the carb sizes and techniques for cleaning gummed up units. I believe your decimal was correct , Bert, but it would seem little go-no go gauges might be made out of fine wires and miked to determine channel size. Also cut off wire presents a cutting surface to a jet channel, even copper, though softer. The torch cleaning tips are bull-nosed and polished so if any channel happens to coincide with the tip diameter it might be ideal. Just because the tips have file teeth does not necessarily mean they will automatically enlarge the base metal, does it? If a channel is "packed" with crud a careful pass of an "undersize" tip would cut a channel thru the crud and give a solvent points of attack along the tip path. On the other hand solvent used on a plugged hole would seem to only slowly eat at the front of the crud- plug , require prolonged use, and need the probe's help.

Please note that the different views and suggestions on cleaning may sometimes differ, but they should be an aide to readers, especially those with the little 2 stroke trimmers who do not want to toss them, but work on them. I think we all agree that the jet openings which are carefully calibrated for fuel mixture and power should not be changed in any manner. But the frequency of problems with gummed carbs deserves discussion. Your humble servant.

purvis:thanks for the tip tip

Poking around a little...An "E" guitar string has been recommended for cleaning passageways. One style welch plug looked like a concave aluminum washer covering two passageways. To remove: puncture and pry out . To replace use (optional ) nail polish and strike the center to expand. LIke an auto freeze plug (somewhat). There is good coverage of some small carburettors ( like Walbro) at "outdoorproducts." The only dimension I found for a gas passage was .013" dia. I saw a technician tool by Honda which resembled the tip cleaners but not files. No diameters given.

motoman said:

Poking around a little...An "E" guitar string has been recommended for cleaning passageways. One style welch plug looked like a concave aluminum washer covering two passageways. To remove: puncture and pry out . To replace use (optional ) nail polish and strike the center to expand. LIke an auto freeze plug (somewhat). There is good coverage of some small carburettors ( like Walbro) at "outdoorproducts." The only dimension I found for a gas passage was .013" dia. I saw a technician tool by Honda which resembled the tip cleaners but not files. No diameters given.

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motoman, that's a good idea. Guitar strings would probably work very well. They're made in various diameters, from about .008" up to about .050" for a regular guitar. Cheap, too. Once they get above a certain size, they're "wound" strings and would have a less-smooth outer surface than a plain string.

Don't ask for an "E" string, though. There are two E strings on a standard tuned guitar--the smallest and the largest, which are both tuned to E. Just ask for the size you want.