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Wacker compactor acting weird

Canadian_digger

Senior Member
Joined
Oct 31, 2007
Messages
811
Location
Ontario
I have a 3545 wacker reversible gas compactor. I am having a weird problem with it. It runs great and works as normal except when you do left hand turns, it bogs the motor down. And vibration almost comes to a stop.
Going straight forward backward or turning right it works perfect.

I did drop it once perty hard.

I did take the top part of the handle apart. The piston and cylinder wall had some scoring. So I cleaned it up with some emery cloth. Re packed the piston, changed the seals and topped it up with oil. But that didn't help.

I'm not sure where to go from here.

Any ideas?
 

Delmer

Senior Member
Joined
Jan 3, 2013
Messages
8,864
Location
WI
I'm curious because I have a similar wacker waiting till I get around to it. Can't help much otherwise. Are you thinking this is the engine losing power somehow (fuel, spark, air, maybe throttle/governor linkage getting moved) or the engine is getting overloaded by the vibrator dragging? If it was a diesel I'd use a non contact thermometer to see if the manifold is hotter or colder than when it's running right at full load, but I'm not sure what that would tell you with a gas engine.

The left hand turn part is really confusing. Some of the suspension binding is the only thing I can think of, unless a gas line, ignition wire etc. is getting pinched causing the engine to slow.
 

Canadian_digger

Senior Member
Joined
Oct 31, 2007
Messages
811
Location
Ontario
I haven't been able to fix this problem. Yesterday I took the bottom plate off. Everything looked normal. Do you think it would be worth taking apart the vibrator? Not sure where to go from here.
 

fast_st

Senior Member
Joined
Dec 1, 2010
Messages
1,468
Location
Mass
Occupation
IT systems admin
Possible the throttle cable is binding up on left hand turns? I'd guess that or a short in the kill wire, try disconnecting both at the engine.
 

DGODGR

Senior Member
Joined
Dec 18, 2009
Messages
1,062
Location
S/W CO
I have similar problem with my small Wacker 1550 plate compactor. It is not from simply turning but will lose power if it goes to an sort of slope. It is an intermittent problem but seems to only do it when one side is lower than the other (when traversing across slope). I don't recall which side has to be lower than the other (it only seems to do it when leaned to the one side). Regardless I think it is relative to the carburetor or the low oil switch. The fact that you are experiencing it when turning left is perplexing. I am not familiar with the model that you say you have. I am assuming that it is a gas powered walk behind that has a handle, with a F-N-R lever and possibly throttle, which one uses to manually power/negotiate a turn. Please show a photo of the entire unit and describe the process of turning with that particular unit.
 

Canadian_digger

Senior Member
Joined
Oct 31, 2007
Messages
811
Location
Ontario
I think I may have figured out what the problem is as I was assembling it. I think when you put pressure on the handle to turn the unite it puts some slack on the v belt. I have removed a shim to tighten up the belt. I didn't try it out yet to see if it fixed the problem. I wanted the silicon to fully cure before I try it. I will report back once I do.
 

Canadian_digger

Senior Member
Joined
Oct 31, 2007
Messages
811
Location
Ontario
Had time today to try the packer. So the problem all along was just a loose belt! Problem solved. Sometimes it can be something simple that just gets over looked.
 
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