The other day I ripped the starter rope out of my Huskie 450 saw. The rope didn't break, but the knot literally just pulled all the way through.

Pulled the starter plate off, cut about a half inch of the rope off to remove the old knot, reknotted it and re-wound the rope in the pull starter.

When the starter plate is off, the rope is clearly under spring tension and unwinds/rewinds fully.

I reassembled and can start the saw, but the rope doesn't fully rewind itself. I get about two or three inches of rope just dangling. But when I cut off the motor, the start rope immediately rewinds itself fully.

Any ideas of what's wrong? I mean, it's not a big deal, just a nuisance, since the saw works fine.

I watched some videos but don't see what I'm doing differently.

You need another wrap or two of spring tension to get it to retract.

Did you remove the pull handle when you wound it? If not, then remove it, turn the tensioner some more to wind the clock spring some more, and reattach the pull handle.

YouTube

I have the same saw. As other have mentioned, pop that cover off again and increase the tensioner a little more.

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:
Did you remove the pull handle when you wound it? If not, then remove it, turn the tensioner some more to wind the clock spring some more, and reattach the pull handle.

I did not. Sounds like the ticket.

Thanks all.

To increase the spring tension, you don't have to remove the pull handle. There is a notch in the spool where you can pull some of the rope through and spin the spool to increase tension. Kind of hard to explain so maybe YouTube might help.