Carburetor throttle shaft play
by Had Robinson
Having the engine stall just when you have the wing safely overhead and are ready to go is a nuisance. You squeeze the paramotor throttle and the engine promptly dies. What happened? You checked the ignition system, fuel system, and maybe even the reed valve. You have *rebuilt* the carburetor and are using fresh fuel. The pop-off pressure is good and you have correctly adjusted the low speed system on the carburetor. When the motor was new it ran fine but now it barely idles and adjustments do not help. What is wrong?
The cause is a rare problem – air leaks caused by excessive throttle shaft play.
A sign is the presence of copious amounts of 2-cycle oil on or about the
center of the carburetor. The oil will not be black but have the same color is had
before it was mixed with fuel. It is normal to have some oil on the
carburetor but it should not be forming a lot of drips. However, if the
connection to the air box is not tight, you may see a lot of oil at the joint
and even some drips. Why is this? All 2 stroke engines "spit"
fuel out of the carburetor. As the reed valve closes after the
intake stroke, the air fuel mixture that is in the carburetor throat will
bounce back out of the carburetor. If the joint between the air box
and the carburetor, the fuel leakage will be minimal.
However, after a few hundred
hours, the constant rotation of the throttle shaft begins to cause serious
wear of the soft metal that makes up the bearing surfaces in the carburetor
body. This problem is greatly exacerbated by external heavy duty return springs which greatly increase the side loading on the shaft. On a WG with 250 hours, I measured over .010" (0.25mm) of lateral play
in the throttle shaft. Such wear and the air leak can cause changes
in the air/fuel mixture at the low end of the power band by causing a lean-out condition.
Measuring throttle shaft bore wear on a Walbro WG
This is not a problem that you
can easily fix.
An expert machine shop could bore out and then fit
bronze bushings in the old body but the expense would be more than purchasing a new
carburetor. Note: the WG may soon become very expensive and hard to obtain so repairs to the carburetor may be required. The
throttle shaft has to be perfectly aligned for the throttle plate to work
correctly, especially at near closed positions.
Your average home
mechanic could probably do a repair using new bushings and epoxy. He
would first have to drill oversized holes in the carburetor body with a
drill press. The replacement bushings would be about 1 mm smaller than
the new holes in the carburetor body. Next, the carburetor would be
completely re-assembled with the throttle plate fully closed. Using
(30) min epoxy, inject it with a needle around each of the new bushings.
This would ensure that the bushings are perfectly aligned. It would
take some skill to keep the epoxy out of the tiny holes in the throat of the
carburetor. The question would be: Would the epoxy hold up to
the severe vibrations generated by the Top 80 engine? It would be fun
to try this when time permits.
Purchasing a new carburetor is the
easiest thing to do as long as they are available. I suggest that all users of the WG purchase a spare while they still can.
Minimizing throttle shaft bore wear
I have developed a quick and inexpensive modification for the throttle cable return spring system that puts almost no lateral load on the throttle shaft. In this setup, the carburetor only needs the weakest spring to close the throttle plate. The less lateral pressure there is on the shaft due to return springs pushing them to one side, the better, as it will minimize wearing of the bore.
It is unfortunate that parts other than those of the main engine wear out sooner on the Top 80. Peripheral parts should be designed to wear out at about the same time as the piston or crankshaft bearings. This should include engine and redrive seals which should never go bad (like the seals in the old Volvos that were made in Sweden). Those seals last 30+ years.
