when putting on my trimmer head, I fogot to place the metal washer disk thing that sits between the trimmer shaft and the trimmer head. Now when I try to unscrew the trimmer head both it and the screw on the shaft rotates, so it is stuck. How can we fix this?
thanks

Tammi, May 2010

Very helpful thread! Thanks everyone.

I had this same thing happen. I bought a brush blade and put it on last Fall. Now Spring, I forgot that the top piece was not part of the accessory, and got the string head stuck as described. I was by myself, so I used vise grips to grab the cable and weighted the pliers down with a spare truck tire to hold in place. Worked well!

Shane, May 2016

Just take the 3 screws out of the white cowl near engine. Shaft will then be disassembled. Put vise grips ( or have someone hold) the coupling. The head will now spin off easily. Reassemble, and remember this procedure. You might need it again. Takes less than 5 min.

johnnyc, May 2015

Take off the three bolts holding on the white cowling and then the one bolt holding on the orange cowling. You are then able to separate them enough to get access to the shaft. With one hand holding the shaft head, you can now spin off the trimmer head. Easy enough, just need to align the shaft when putting back together. Also make sure to put the correct bolts back in correct places. One looks almost same but has different threads than others, don't wanna crossthread. Ashamed to admit I had this whole problem, but then one shouldn't do Jaeger bombs and weedeat!

chainsaw124, September 2014

FS 55 stihl weed eater starts and runs but head will not turn?

James, June 2014

in the end i took it into a local dealer (9 miles away)
They got the head off while i waited. They said they get a lot of people coming in with that problem, they have become expert in unjamming the assembly.

chris Hawkey, July 2013

same happened to me, it is about time Stihl clarified their assembly illustrations. There is no indication of the washer in the instruction diagram

chris Hawkey, July 2013

Hi, me too, did anyone find a way to get the head off ?

Alan, October 2012

I had this happen on FS 55 R. My dealer was able to take off lower portion of drive shaft and head attach to an old shaft and use a vice to pry it off.

Colman, June 2011

humh. anyone sort this out. i've just done the same thing first time putting trimmer head on.
any ideas would be great

kevin, April 2011

no idea but i've just done exactly the same. did you get it sorted?

rob, June 2010