What size?

[micky]

Okay, so I bought a heavy but powerful weedwacker from the same woman who gave me a great deal on the lawn mower.

I guess they had to screw on the sold plastic guard around and above the wacker, because today it fell off. It had worked for 45 minutes prior to this. The screws must not have been in tightly enough.

Rather than drag the whole weedwacker to the store, I thought I'd look in the owners manual that I dl'd to find the size. No size mentioned, in fact no llst of things in the package. Just a drawing of the guard sliding into place. No English required.

So I try a website that sells parts. Have to download the exploded view and find the number for the screw. 24. Have to look in the list and t here it is, Screw, but no diameter or thread size.

But it does have a part number, 098119-23

So I look for the part on the web, going by the number and the word "screw" and find lots of places that sell it, so I look at 5.

Still, none of them give the dimensions.

But the prices are interesting. I didn't take the time to find out shipping, even though that makes all the difference.

$0.89 at 1800toolrepair.com 0.95 at ereplacementparts.com 1.14 at toolpartspro.com 1.61 at mastertoolrepair.com 3.99 at searspartsdirect.

Wow. Maybe later I'll have time to check the shipping charge.

ereplacementparts is the only one smart enough to display the part against a 1" grid so one can see how big it is.

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, Unable to find one at HD hell box?

[Pico Rico]

I didn't realize people actually kept those guards on their machines.

[VinnyB]

On Mon, 08 Sep 2014 16:54:10 -0400, micky wrote in

Wow! Why not just try some screws that you have laying around?

[gfretwell]

These days everyone should buy a pretty good assortment of metric screws.

[micky]

I just wanted to know the size before I went there.

To everyone:

I have hundreds of machine screws at home that I've colllected, but much is in disarray this year, and the location of the can of machine screws is top-secret now, and I don't have access to it.

But I do have a pre-filled set of plastic drawers with lots of little parts, so I looked there. The 6-32 wobbled, and the 8-32 wouldn't go in. Since I didn't think there was anything between the two except maybe metric, I went with 6-32. The box was supposed to have 3/4 and 1" but I remember one size they sent me two bags of, and no bag of the other,

So I had to take the 1" screws and cut them shorter with a small-connector crimping pliers. That worked quite well as it always does.

The guard went on fairly well, and will be good for at least a year. If it fails, maybe I'll try something else.

The guard is probably not needed on smaller weewackers but IIRC this is

7 amps and it would rip up my ankle plenty if it had the chance. Plus I used square line instead of round, plus I never wear long pants in the summer at home. (When it hits the fence pickets, it practically cuts them in half. )

I went to HD for something else anyhow and looked at the screws. Nothing in between.

It was originally an Allen screw. They don't come in different sizes do they? Hard to believe it's metric. It's Black and Decker, GH1000. Ground Hog.

[Al Sharptone]

Maybe an M4x.70

[Stormin Mormon]

For a high vibration device like that, I'd be sure to use threadlock. If there were no plans to ever remove the screws, I'd use epoxy on the threads.

[Scott Lurndal]

[Jon Danniken]

I don't, but the auto parts store a few miles from my house does, and they sell them by the piece.

Jon

[trader_4]

IF they gave you the size, maybe it would be harder to sell replacement ones for $4?

I just went through an interesting experience with the BMW here. Needed

6 small O-rings, the size of your little finger. BMW list is $2.50. I saw a dealer here in NJ online that sells them for $1.95. Need six of them. They are common, used on millions of BMW for several applications. So, instead of calling up, I just go over to the nearest BMW dealer, 10 mile drive. They have none, can 4 of them by 3PM..... Great. That tells me that even the NJ main warehouse only has 4 of them. This dealer can check stock at other dealers, so he find out that another dealer, 15 miles away, has 2. 4+2=6. My lucky day. So, I drive all the way over there, get the two, go to pay for them and they say "With tax, that's $15. WTF? They wanted $7 a piece for a part where the BMW list is only $2.50. So, I walked out.

IDK how many parts they are royally screwing customers on, but it's easy to see how they get away with it. Typical customer brings the car in for service, gets a $1000 bill with a long list of parts. It has 6 O-rings that cost the jacked up $42. But customer doesn't know exactly what they are, how small they are, that they are just industrial O-rings that you can buy based on size for 20 cents each. Even jacking the prices up to 3x on a few items, can bring big $$$ to the bottom line.