Picked up a saw this weekend at a flea market that’s missing the carb. Curious about the no name carbs online that run anywhere from $11 to $21 vs OEM that’ll set you back $75/$85. This is for a Husky 55.
If it were me I’d buy this and a rebuild kit: OEM Husqvarna 55 51 50 Special Chainsaw Carburetor Carb For Rebuild Free Ship | eBay Aftermarket carburetors are hit or miss IME.
I’ve had some good luck on eBay from time to time. Better act now; there’s less than 3 1/2 hours left on that posting
I agreee the aftermarket carbs are hit or miss. I have had far fewer that worked perfectly. Most work with some issues and some can never be tuned to work right. I would listen to Eric and grab that used carb!
Does anyone know WHY aftermarket carbs are so bad? It doesn't seem like the tolerances should be that hard to hit. Something to do with the rubber compounds in the diaphragm or something? I put a chinese carb on my push mower and it definitely works but not nearly as well as the original one.
I’ve gotten lucky with two Amazon carbs; one for a Poulan string trimmer and the other for a Tecumseh snow king. Both work excellent and I’d say the engines run better than they did before.
Well they manage to screw up things a lot less complicated than a diaphragm carb, so no surprise to me! I'm more surprised that some of them actually do work ok!
That was my experience about 6-7 years ago with a carburetor I bought for my old Simplicity snowblower. I put it on, it started first pull and I never fiddled with it right up until the time I sold that machine 2 years ago. For $15 I was dumbfounded. But that seemed to be the exception to the rule and the couple others I bought for various engines ran less than optimal.
Hipa is the only aftermarket carbs I've had 100% success with so far. I would still go oem if it were my quality ope.
OEM only on carbs is my take, if you are getting into the saw gig, get a small ultrasonic cleaner. Unless a carb has ethanol corrosion damage, you can get them clean with an ultrasonic and just re-kit them and be good to go. The 55 (and all its variants) were plentiful, don’t be scared to hit eBay or any of the used parts saw shops up.
My opinion is that the Walbro WT 170 is better than the Zama. My 55 has the Walbro and it has only had 2 kits in it since 1996 and still tunes flawlessly.
