Question on string trimmer / edger

Joined
Sep 10, 2005
Messages
1,829
Location
Erie, PA
I have a cheapie Troy built TB425cs trimmer that can take attachments. The prior owner sunk a ton of money into a tune-up, new carb, and fuel system. I got it for free and it runs very very excellent.

But the issue is the upper driveshaft that is part of the tube (which goes from the engine clutch, half way down to the coupler) is stripped. The male drive haft that is part of the trimmer or edger attachment is just fine and not worn at all.

The part is 100% un-obtanium and the ones I did find are too expensive. I tried to metal epoxy it, and it just strips out in 5 minutes. Does anyone know of a way I can merge the two pieces together permenantly as I only want this as an edger.
 
Can you post a pic? A couple of tack welds sound like the solution to me. Might need to cut a temporary access hole in the side of the outer tube to get access.
 
this is exactly why not to buy these cheap throwaways from big box stores. there is little to no parts support down the line. I don't care if its just for occasional home use-its false economy
 
Originally Posted by super20dan
this is exactly why not to buy these cheap throwaways from big box stores. there is little to no parts support down the line. I don't care if its just for occasional home use-its false economy

It's not just the cheapie units...I had 6 or 7 Stihl trimmers between 5 and 25 years old with un-obtanium fuel tanks, etc and couldn't piece together a single functional unit. I eventually threw in the towel and bought a new one. Even name brands only have obtainable parts for about 10 years.
 
A little plot twist to the story......get it....... a plot "t w i s t", like what the drive cable should be doing. Funny huh?

Ended up going down to local power equipment dealer and they ended up having a skid of dead trimmers. Found a nice 2005 era Toro model 51950 that looks like it had the identical drive shaft tube and attachment point.

I planned to swap the tube and stuff over but after stripping this one down it was too good to use for parts. All the issue was one of the centrifugal clutch bolts had backed out locking up the clutch, and the other issue was the muffler was carboned up and plugged. After fixing these two isses the 2 stroke toro is much better and more powerful than the 4 stroke troy built.

Now onto finding another parts trimmer.......or a hack fix....
 
A couple of ideas...

1. Find another dead attachment capable trimmer with a good upper pipe & driveshaft as a donor to use with your current engine.

2. If you really only care about effectively making a fixed shaft edger, you could remove the drive shafts from the edger attachment and from the existing upper pipe, obtain a full-length flexible drive shaft from another donor trimmer, and then "permanently" attach the lower shaft to your existing upper shaft using the donor flexible drive shaft. You could cut the end of the upper tube if you need to make a minor adjustment to match the overall tube length needed for the donor drive shaft.
 
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These trimmers in in scrap piles of most small engine shops nationwide. MTD makes TB, Crapsman, etc. I see them everywhere with bad carbs because they are too cheap to justify fixing w/labor. Keep looking and you can find one. I think I have a similar Crapsman trimmer in my scrap pile... and 5 or 6 that I can get close to free. PM me a picture of the part and a P/N... those trimmers were and are super duper mass produced. Most parts are readily available cheap.
 
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