372xp problems

LouReed

Hello all! New to this site and new to being an arborist in general, lookin forward to it! So I've got a 372xp, about 8 years old or so, that idles fine, but as soon as you pull the throttle it bogs and will stall if you don't ease up. If you gently, and I mean GENTLY, pull the throttle it will rev up to full speed and will cut wood ok if you dont stress it too much. I ran some sea foam through it to see if that would help, and I thought it was for about half a tank, then it got worse. I pulled to plug and it's a dark gray. I cleaned the plug and got it to idle again, but it's still running like crap. What do you guys think? Carb rebuild? Air leak? Crank seals?

Another question, why can I only turn the carb screws a half turn? I'm assuming they are trying to idiot proof the adjustments, but can I take those stops off without messing up the saw?

windthrown

Sounds like you just need to adjust the low carb screw to smooth out the throttle response. Might be a problem jet on the low side though, which would mean a carb rebuild. You can soak the carb in Boy-Scout juice (Coleman fuel, AKA: white gas) and that may help.

As for the reason that the screws are limited, that is becasue they install limiter caps for EPA requirements. These keep you from running your saw rich. You can cut the tabs off them and re-install. You need to keep the limiters on with the tabs removed to keep the carb screws from moving around once they are set.