Helping the Environment by Buying Big, Electricity-Sucking Carb Cleaners from China

I have sprung for an ultrasonic parts cleaner.

My Jonsered chainsaw pooped out due to the destructive and hard-to-reverse effects of toxic ethanol-polluted fuel. I spend a few bucks on a Chinese carb for it, but I was never able to get the carb adjusted so the saw would run well enough to use.

It was very frustrating. I downloaded official instructions from the manufacturer. If you have a Jonsered with a Zama carb, you may find them useful. They’re very simple.

1. Open the idle screw all the way (turning clockwise).

2. Start the saw.

3. Adjust the L screw until you get maximum speed.

4. Adjust the H screw until you get smooth operation at all speeds.

5. Adjust the idle screw until the saw stops trying to turn the chain at idle.

It’s best to remove the chain before you do these things. The instructions I downloaded said to adjust the idle with the chain in place. Not very smart. You have to hold onto a saw with one hand and turn a screw with the other, while the chain is zipping around at high speed. I don’t know who wrote the instructions. Probably not the smartest engineer the company has.

The saw has a drum that turns the chain, so you can observe the drum instead of the chain while you adjust the idle. Just make the drum stop turning.

That’s all there is to it, but I could not make it work. I tried over and over. I resisted taking it to a repairman, because they would have kept it a month and charged a hundred bucks or more.

A tree fell over in my yard, and I left it there for weeks because I was stubborn. I didn’t want to cut it with my heavy felling saw. I was determined to get the small Jonsered working. I eventually gave up and used the big saw.

Two days ago, I resolved to get the small saw working. I took the carb out, which is a very unpleasant job on the poorly engineered Husqvarna-made Jonsered. I found that a spring on the throttle was in the wrong place. I bent it back into position, but when I reinstalled the carb, it popped back out.

I was not going to spend half a day fighting to get a Chinese spring to behave. I ordered a new carb. This will bring me up to three Jonsered carbs. I should be able to take them and make one that works.

This is the second time I’ve had a problem with a new Chinese carb, but I still recommend them because they’re so cheap and repairmen are so expensive, slow, and inept. You’re actually better off buying a used saw on Craigslist than going to a shop.

Now that I’ve had this issue, I have decided to grit my teeth and get a cleaning machine so there will be some hope of reviving old carbs in the future.

I resisted getting a machine in the past because they cost over a hundred bucks, and they are known to die. I found out they die mainly because people don’t fill the tanks all the way. The transducers expect to work against fluid, and they do something bad–I don’t know what–when you run them without enough liquid. I’m smart enough to put liquid in a tank. I think I can overcome this problem.

I was also reluctant because I didn’t want to deal with the disgusting liquids people use to fill these things. They use all sorts of petroleum products. I didn’t want to have to empty many liters of black, greasy solvent every time I put the machine away.

I learned you don’t have to put solvent in direct contact with the tank. You can put a small amount of solvent in a plastic jar, along with your part, and the machine will clean it through the jar just fine. You put ordinary water in the tank. It never gets dirty, and you never have to pour a huge amount of nasty solvent into a storage container.

Sonic cleaners come from China these days, like everything except air and water. They’re all the same. I bought the least-expensive brand I could find. I hope I don’t have to use it a lot.

I’m going to clean my original Jonsered carb, just to see if it works. I have a couple of other carbs to toss in there. When ethanol inevitably ruins another carb, I’ll try one of my cleaned carbs before I buy Chinese again.

Sonic cleaners are good for lots of things. You can clean jewelry and ammunition cases. It will be nice to have this capability. If it works.

Here’s a tip from someone who has suffered a lot: if your small engine carb dies, and you don’t want to give up on it, take a look at the metering diaphragm. This is a black rubbery looking thing you will find clamped between two plates on the carb. It’s supposed to flex back and forth. Flex it a few times. If you hear any noise at all, throw it out and replace it. They get hard and stop working. A good diaphragm should be so soft it flexes silently.

The Walbro company, a Japanese concern which makes carburetors, has come out with a weird type of metering diaphragm which lasts longer than fabric. They have little spirals of metal in them. Might be worth looking into, if you have a Walbro carb. Your black old-fashioned diaphragm will definitely die, so you might as well look into replacements early.

It’s hard to believe how difficult it is to keep a chainsaw running from one month to the next. They’re as frail and unreliable as racehorses or inbred European royals, so of course, Congress made things worse by forcing us to use debased fuel which can kill the toughest motor ever made.

They should come with two carbs. In fact, it’s a great idea to buy an extra carb when you buy a small-engine tool such as a chainsaw or pressure washer. Why wait for it to break down, when $20 or much less buys you insurance?

Maybe when cars run on 100% ethanol fuel, we can just buy spare engines for them and put them on pallets in our garages. The small $8000 investment will be a small sacrifice in order to appease Mother Gaia.

How much did the ethanol I burned in my small engines help the environment or extend the life of our oil reserves? How much did it hurt the environment and deplete our reserves to manufacture, sell, and deliver the new carbs I’ve bought? Hmm.

The new carbs didn’t just require burning diesel, coal, and gasoline. They required mining and processing ore. They required casting and metalworking. They were made in a country where carburetor factories are about as green as Chernobyl.

Just a little info I feel like passing along.

The ethanol scam needs to end. The only people who like it are deluded environmentalists and spoiled corn farmers.

I think the ultrasonic cleaner will be very handy. If only it ran on coal.