Hey, this is a bit of a rant/question.

I was at a local engine shop, looking for a poulan 46cc saw. The guy didnt have any (at least he said that) and seemed to not want to help me. I just want to punch out the close minded fools that work at these places (dont mean offense to anyone, thats just how i feel) I keep getting the polite version of f*** off! wich includes: Oh these are junk when we get them. You cant use the engine cause the saw is part of the case in all saws, the jug is scored and the seals and rings are done. Even if it was just the jug and ring, its going to cost at least $150.00 , so you should just buy a new one. I just so happened to search on google about saw parts, and found alot of home and garden forums. This $150.00 speech seems to be common everywhere.
I personally thought it was BS. So i searched for about an hour, and came up with this site http://www.milacalawn.com/parts.asp Just follow the links to the parts look up. Most the jugs cost about $40 to $50. The shipping shouldnt be much. A far cry from the infamous $150 line.
So my question is: Where do you guys get your parts from? and Do you have these problems with so called "mechanics" ?

Another thing, are most jugs (same displacement, different saw) inter changeable?

Thanks,
andrew

My local repair shop will give me all the broken wackers I want, but they will not give me any saws. I think the saws that aren't too bad they fix and re-sell. They always have a good supply of used saws for sale and at close to market price.

The main thing is, I am willing to pay for these engines. The one guy that would help me doesnt work at the one shop that I know has engines anymore. The new guy im hoping will come around to helping me out. I told him, that im not a charity case, and I will pay for the engines. There is a whole barn full of old saws and stuff, but he thinks i dont know about it. The other shop is terrible. They see that im a young guy, and dont really want to help me. If im standing at the counter, they pretty much ignore me, and help out other people first. (even if I have been standing there for a while)

I've notticed that kind of thing too. The local saw and garden equipment shop was real generious the first time I visited with my 5-year oll son. The best of the bunch was a Koirtz 56 cc out of a chain saw. It had multiple rings. Ran great. Some of the other engines could not be salvaged. Two had scored jugs.

Can a jug be honed?

The second time I went they wanted $100 for junk saws and back pack blowers. I think he had it in his head that I was reselling the engines.

This shop has ripped off my father a couple of times. He would bring in something for repair and was told the saw, or whatever, could not be repaired. They kept the item. He would then get a "hard sell" to buy a new item. The last one was a pressure washer. I told him to go get it back and I would look at it. I had it running fine in about 10-minuets.

I feel for the small shop owner. It must be tough to make a living on items that you can buy at COSTCO or Sam's Club for half the price. Yes, it is true that a Huskie or Stihl saw is better. Only a small percentage of the population appreciates why it is better. They just want to cut some garden tree limbs or whatever on a limited basis. A professional logger would know the difference and pay for it. He is a rare. It is too bad our society has changed but it has. I would never go into business with a one-of small saw shop. 90% of folks are going to find a simmilar item a huge discount elsewhere. I can't see how you would make a living servicing this kind of thing. Maybe they are getting frustrated or jaded?

A jug can be honed (use a ball hone) but only to break the glaze on the cylinder. If it is scored badly, its not repairable. I looked into boring them out a bit, and getting a bigger ring, but there is a special coating (chrome or some other type) I guess if you knew someone who could re chrome the cylinder, you could try it, but its probably expensive. Did you try and look up a new jug on that site?
Most the shops here, also sell new equipment, and one also sells and services heavy equipment. They are doing quite well. I bet most of those shops would do way better, if they actually learned how to fix the equipment. Ex: Alot of engines that I have worked on, had leaking seals, or loose bolts. I was told they were junk and would never run. And of course the $150 line. I think the most I have put into an engine to get it running, was a $12 seal from a bearing supply company. It took me about 45 mins to fix.
A new saw or trimmer is pretty cheap. I have been tempted to start up my own little side business, but dont have a shop to do it, or the spare time right now. I bet after a year in business, I could take a huge chunk of their business, just with better people skills and a will to service or repair something. The ones here shouldnt be called repair shops. They dont really repair much.

the problem with the mower shops is they charge $75 an hour labor, which is what costs the most, and that is too much for people with a $75 consumer grade trimmer... so the shops tell them they aren't worth fixing.

I've done this when I was short on money but had some time on my hands, I made up an ad on craigslist for $40 trimmer repair plus parts, it's a good market in the spring, you'll get people lined up to fix their stuff, I made almost $150 in one saturday doing that. it's usually something simple like you said unless it's hosed, some people just don't know anything about engines. there will be those engines that bite you in the rear, like I got this newer Honda push mower, that carb was a PIA to work on, passages everywhere covered with soft plugs that I didn't want to get out, I had to tear it apart a good 3 or 4 times before it ran reliably... but most were a 20 minute job, so $40 for 20 minutes with just time invested isn't bad. another good thing to do is buy a stack of $3 carb rebuild kits from online and charge half what the mower shops charge for them ($15)

most of the time I either did it out of the back of my truck, a couple times at their place, and the rest in my driveway if you organize it right it can be done with minimal space, I have a small garage that had 2 other peoples stuff in it so there wasn't any spare room, so I had to work with what I had. the other thing to do is look for really cheap lots of weedeaters from people that just stockpile them because they don't know how t fix them then sell the ones not worth converting for $50 once you get them running good, since you don't need them lowballing to $30 doesn't hurt too much...

The funny thing is, that $75 is the same rate as the flying club. Its funny how they think that it ok to charge the same rate as aircraft mechanics do. And i bet they work alot slower too.

The problem is Ebay.There are a lot of people going around to saw shops,picking up the saws,then reselling on ebay.Not that this is a problem,but they are making some good money.
I can buy a brand new saw,strip it for our use.Then sell the parts on the bay and make 3 times my money back.And still have a brand new engine.
Stihl and Husky want about $100 for a new recoil.And you have a whole saw.
There was a lady from the south a while back selling saws.She even said in the ad she couldnt start them,she couldnt tell what was wrong with them,they where being sold as is.She said she didnt even know how to check if it had compression.
But she was making money from her home.
The saw shops just want to make sure you cant make any moneu because they cant put there used stuff on peoples equipment under warranty issues.
I talked to a Husky dealer and he said any warranty must be OEM,or he will lose his license and dealership.NO Exceptions to the rules.

What really burns me about some guys who sell engines on Ebay is, They will disassemble a good engine and try selling all the parts separately to inflate their profit. By the time you buy the complete engine you could spend $200 on a used engine, in an unverified condition. I guess they think they are soooo clever. I for one will never buy anything from one of these greedy sellers, just out of principle.

and I think that they try and make money on the shipping too. I looked at some parts on Ebay, and there is no way in Hell that it would cost as much as they were charging to ship.

Hello
see Amazon for Ryobi reconditioned chainsaw at 99 $, search in this forum a person with Ryobi chainsaw, have, this engine have converted here in a topic but I cant find the topic or my memory is falling.
This is a two ring engine .
Make a search in this forum a person converted it I saw.
May be it help you in your election, if you must disasemble, change bearings etc, carburetor, you spend near the 99$ and have an old saw engine , old carburetor.
Only my point of view.
I am also converted a Poulan 25 cc new and a Homelite 38 chainsaw bought used.
Also see garbage can in Walmart etc, I found two chainsaw chinese 40 cc brand BKS in a local mart , at 80 U$s each, new inside.
Happy landings
Jose

I have found that its a bit cheaper to order parts, plus doing it that way, you know that the jug is brand new. I was going to go with princess auto, but there wasnt a practical way to ID the engines. They said that you get whatever size is in the box. THey are all different sizes. Plus the ID plates are removed or rubbed away making it hard to get a part number for parts lookup.

Hello
Yes if you enjoy tinkering with engines, this is the way, I am in Argentina have no option, because spare parts are expensive.
I like tinkering with engines, it is relaxating, if you have time and hardware you can sharp your mechanics knowledge.
This site is very helpful, 50% of my success come from RCuniverse, in engine conversion.
Happy landings
Jose

Hello
do you know chainsaw collectors? This is site with links , info and may be you have a collector near you.

http://www.acresinternet.com/cscc.nsf

They are in Canada, the host can help you, good man.
Good luck
Happy landings
Jose