126 won't idle smooth

[Rhoderman]

We finally had a warm day on a weekend! I put a new sediment bowl on my 126, put in the new battery, and she fired up nicely. The clutch is so shot it isn't funny. The holes in the fiber disk are so wallered out, it hops around more than 1/4" when it's not engaged. That's for later.

My problem is that it just won't settle down when it's just a bit above idle. The throttle is bouncing around and the engine sounds like crap. If I idle down, sometimes it will idle and smooth out, other times, it keeps up the throttle bouncing. If I hold the throttle shaft steady on the carb, it will run smooth at any desired speed.

I've added the bronze bushing to the carb body. It was way loose before (didn't idle good before either).

Is it possibly the governor adjustment? I'm also wondering if maybe a small spring pulling the throttle plate closed might help. It looks like one could run it from the throttle shaft over to the sediment bowl or something. Seemed like a kluge, so I figured I'd ask you experts first.

[Rhoderman]

Well, bad news I'm afraid. I went out and loosened the governor clamp bolt and proceeded to rotate the shaft CCW while the throttle was wide open. And rotate, and rotate... Rut-Roh Raggy! Not good. Methinks the tab broke off the governor shaft.

And I seem to recall that was probably the very first part I installed in my K301 for my 122 earlier this winter. Guess I'm going to have to rebuild another one. It needed it anyway, but I was hoping to play around with this 126 until I got the 122 back together. I guess I still can, I just won't have governed throttle. Not a big problem for putting around the yard pulling the trailer.

I guess that was why it seemed so easy to over-rev, huh?

Anybody seen one of these break before? Anybody come up with a way to replace it w/o a full teardown?

[Matt G.]

You really are going to have to completely tear the motor down to replace it, I'm afraid. The new cross shaft you can buy is welded a little better than the old ones were.