Recoil issue on lightwins

[opposedtwin]

Have bought a few of these lately. The one with the recoil problem is a 1957. When I bought it I noticed the recoil was riding a bit high but wasn’t really concerned. It started easily and ran well. Took the recoil and the lower cowls off to clean it all up and rub some cleaner wax onto the cowlings/tank, etc and noticed some spacer washers fell out when I lifted the recoil off. When I went to reassemble, I didn’t add any washers because the parts catalog doesn’t show them as being stock. Well, the recoil fit nice and smooth but is bound up and won’t budge. I loosened the 4 screws that hold it down and that freed up the recoil, but now it’s all sloppy on the tank. Can’t see anything obvious when i compare it to a 1958 lightwin side by side, except that the flywheel looks out of level on the 1957 model. Why out of level? Bent crank shaft I thought at first but as I turned the flywheel, it doesn’t wobble but stays in the same "out of level" orientation.

Here are pictures of the two motors. What do you think is going on here? I guess I should also look at the underside of the recoils as well.

Thanks for your thoughts.
Scott

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Attachments:

[neps989]

Is the cowling aligned properly? Might be bent on one side.

[fleetwin]

Do the starters on both engines bind up?? The 57 (lower one) does appear to be out of whack…Alignment is controlled by the white aluminum center ring and the horizontal mount on the front of the powerhead. Everything will be out of whack if someone has dropped the engine and bent these components, or perhaps someone has pried on these parts while making previous repairs. You should be able to figure out which part is out of whack if the 58 model recoil works properly…Simple compare the parts side by side. Finally, I neglected to point out that the fuel tank itself helps properly locate the recoil. Perhaps the 57 tank is dented or distorted somehow…I guess I would start by putting the 58 tank onto the 57 to see if the flywheel still appears not level to the tank…

[frankr]

My guess is a bent bracket that mounts the front of the tank to the powerhead.

[opposedtwin]

Good ideas that i will check out. Thanks guys!

[fleetwin]

I guess I should have mentioned/thought of just swapping the recoils first to see if the binding problem follows the recoil….

[opposedtwin]

Last night I was able to get into this problem further. A number of things going on caused by a drop or something, somewhere along the way. The white ring the tank sits on was not straight on the starboard side. Was able to straighten it with no problems. The small bracket that the white ring mounts to was out of true as well. After reassembling, it was much better but not perfect. The thin aluminum dust cover for the flywheel inspection holes was ripped in a couple spots and no longer flat. I trimmed the bad spots off of it, tapped it flat and voila! now the recoil works as it should.

Surprising how tight those tolerences are!

Thanks for the suggestions!
Scott

[royaljoe1954]

This was a very common problem on the 5 HP. Gales I worked on. They bounced around in car trunks and the tank brackets got slightly bent. Using washers raised the tank to stop the binding. The proper solution is to remove the tank and correct the angle of the brackets.

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