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What to Look For in a Used SA-200 Pipeliner,
And What to Pass Up.
The number one reason to buy and maintain a Lincoln SA-200 or SA250 is that you can repair and/or upgrade the machine to keep it in use. In this author's humble opinion, both Lincoln and Miller Electric manufacture machines meant to be used and thrown away. From their business standpoint, it is a smart move; they make a profit by selling new machines. Storing, cataloging, and tracking spare parts is an unprofitable business.
Your local-yokel welding supply makes its highest profit on selling consumables. Anything you buy, consume, and have to return to buy more is a consumable. A thirty-five thousand dollar welding machine should not be considered consumable. It's a tool that will wear, be damaged, but must be economically maintainable.
Maybe it’s me, but does it seem like nobody knows anything about anything anymore? Imagine filling up your car at -10F with a 30-mile-an-hour wind blowing in your face, and then the card reader can’t read your card, followed by the printer not working. It seems to be worse by the day.
I understand we have a critical lack of young people with practical skills. There is nothing you or I can do. This means we are all going to have to become technologically self-sufficient. I am 78 years old, and I built this website, as you probably can tell. You have to be willing to fail, and fail again, knowing that success is on the other side of failure.
When you are looking for a used SA-200, SA250, or a SA250 diesel, you have to balance two opposing factors.
1) How much do you want to spend on the machine?
2) How much do you want to spend on repairs and upgrades?
3) Can you do the grunge work of turning bolts and nuts, or are you going to have to pay someone to?
You need to take my words to heart; Do not believe anything the seller tells you! What technical expertise does the seller have?
You're about to part with money you have worked hard for. Even though the engine starts and sounds. It welds like a dream. What you cannot see must be evaluated.
Take the machine to an expert to have the engine checked out:
1. Pressure test the cooling system.
2. A compression test.
3. Oil pressure test.
4. Vacuum test.
5. Oil leaks?
6. Anything that looks questionable.
Welder evaluations:
1. Visual and resistance evaluation of the main armature.
2. Visual and resistance of the series and shunt coils.
3. Wiring and connections condition.
4. Main armature bearing for excessive wear and noise.
5. Visual and resistance tests of the exciter (L870-7) coils.
6. Visual evaluation and "growler test".
7. Visual and physical condition of the main current switch (gear-shift?)
8. Load test 200+ amps at 40 volts for 6 minutes
In my opinion, major repairs on your welder are the same as medical or dental work. Spend the Pesos and get the best repairs you can. I am talking about repairs you are unable to do yourself. This normally means major repairs to the engine, stator, and armature. Water pumps, alternators, hoses, carburetor replacement, brushes, and exciter coils and armatures are normally simply removed and replaced.
1. A good shop should charge about $100.00 for labor. There is a long and steep learning curve to repairing these machines properly; you can't go to school, you have to learn it the hard way.
2 Engine overhaul; to do the engine correctly, it must be removed from the machine and remanufactured by an experienced engine machine shop. Expect to pay $3,000 for engine work and $1,500 to $2,000 in labor to R&R the engine. You may need a new radiator, starter, manifold, carburetor, and magneto service (this would be a good time to ditch the mag and upgrade to a distributor ignition.
3. Stator and rewound armatures. Lincoln has discontinued most parts for the SA 200, but the aftermarket has filled the demand, with many parts far superior to Lincoln OEM parts. They can normally be repaired; in some cases, they have to be replaced, but many cories are still available.
For more information, click on the part image.
What you should expect to pay for Major Work on an SA200?
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Why You Should Aquire an SA200/SA250.
In two words, it works! A machine that has such a long, good history, and you can maintain it. When you have an engine (F Series Continental) with a history (97 years as of 2026), it became the standard 4-cylinder diesel engine of World War 2; millions were produced. When you have this popular engine design, any engine mechanic should be comfortable with its technology. We know its strengths and weaknesses, the design can be upgraded.
Our opinion on the machine to look for.
What no one will tell you about the Octagon barrel SA200. Basically, the SA200, SA250, 3.152, Classic series, and 300 series diesels have almost identical designs. There are different armature lengths and bearings: different shunt coils, and other differences. With one design, a whole new line of machines was created, featuring more powerful engines, more torque, and higher current output.
These units came with the "PC board" idler system, almost all Continental F-163 engines, and a different starter mounting (high mount).
Starting with code number: XXXX, Lincoln Electric started producing the Octobarrel stator welders. The armature, series, shunt, and interpole coils are all similar. The armatures will have different size ribbon (ther is no wire on the main armature). the shunt coils will vary. With different more powerful engines you can make a 200, 250, or 300 amp welders. Great engineering, production was another matter.
The above diagram is of an Octagon (8-sided) stator design
What to look for and what to walk away from!
The key to buying a used SA200 or SA250 is to look for the code number.
The original K-6090 "Long Hood" started with code number: 3417, they are commonly known as a "Round Barrel machine.. They mainly had Continental F162 engines, magnetio ignitions, and the R-57 vacuum idler system.
There are many myths concerning these machines, including "Copper Wound". Yes they had copper windings, for the most part, in the real world it means nothing, because they had inferior insulation.
The F162 was a more complex engine with a 6.5 to 1 compression, but it was designed to run on unleaded ethanol gasoline or detergent oil. Parts are getting very rare.
If you want to rebuild one, you have to find a shop with experience with these machines. Good luck!
Here is something that no one in the industry seems to know. There are two SA-200 code numbers you should walk from, which are 4744 & 4745. In Lincoln's never-ending quest to cheapen its flagship products. As shown in the image, they made two code numbers with an armature bolted directly to the flywheel. Guess what happened, the armature shaft broke. Walk away, much more trouble than it's worth.
What to what to walk away from!
---OPINION---
The only reason you have windings, armature, and coil failures is due to cheap external manufacturing. They obviously never improved their insulation procedure till the end of the production run, approximately 1992.
We can update the original design.
1. Rewound armatures installed in our shop, with a lifetime warranty
2. Serial and shunt coils in our shop, with a lifetime warranty.
3. Exciter windings and rewound exciter armatures, with a lifetime warranty when installed in our shop
I recently saw this machine advertised on Facebook. First off, let me say I have never seen this machine. All I am doing is looking at a picture. The seller wants $6,000 for this jewel. Is it worth $6,000? I don't know. Without doing a compression test, coming out the coils, putting on a load bank, I can't tell you anything. But if you know what to look for, you can head off a lot of problems.
1. No matter how good the paint looks, you must understand that this is an old machine, how old? You really don't know.
But if you look at the exhaust manifold, you can see that the red is still there, but the seal has rusted off. It takes a lot of hard running and high humidity to rust a manifold that badly, but if it has no holes in it, you shouldn't have any problems.
2. Lincoln Electric started producing this style of octagon barrel machine somewhere around 1975. So it could be as old as 56 years. It appears to have the original All Bath Air Cleaner, so I can tell you right now that the seals are leaking.
3. Notice the item right where the pan and the block come together (circled in red)? This tells me one thing: this engine has a lot of blow-by and is leaking oil. What you see is a redneck PCV valve system. The blow-by from the engine vent tube is funneled through the PCV valve back up into the carburetor and re-burned. The negative pressure on the crankcase will suck the oil back into the engine. The problem is that as the rod and cranks move, they form an oil mist. Eventually, they'll suck all the oil out of the crankcase because there's no fresh air coming in to replace what you're sucking out and burning.
4. From what I can see of the paint job, it was painted fast, quickly, and with very little preparation. And on the starter housing, you can see the pitting. That means it's going to flake off. On the hood, there's a pretty severe dent that was never repaired. It wouldn't take more than 10 minutes with a body hammer and a hand anvil to straighten that dent out.
5. It does have an electronic ignition, and in my opinion, it is definitely a step in the right direction.
6. I was seriously considering buying it. Here's what I do first. The engine, if the electronic ignition was installed right, it should fire right off. Check the carburetor for leaking gasoline.
Look for exhaust smoke:
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Blue smoke means it's burning oil.
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Black smoke says it's running rich.
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If everything is ok, it will be clear, maybe a light gray.
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Does the idler pick up when you try to strike an arc? If it will strike an arc, you know the exciter is working.
Does this thing look funky? Anything smell wrong? How does it weld? Always check the machine with your rods. It should burn a 3/16th with little or no load.
Now it's time to take it to a good mechanic, or you can do it yourself.
Check the compression on the engine. A minimum of 115 PSI on all cylinders, no cylinder plus or minus 10%. Check it with a vacuum gauge. A good mechanic can tell you a lot about the valve train just by engine vacuum. Pressure test the cooling system. It should hold good pressure for 10 minutes without any drawdown.
7. Take the nose cone off and look at these exciter coils. They are Lincoln OEM L8707 exciter coils,
And the only thing you need to know about them is that they're going to go bad. You can find superiorly
made coils on the aftermarket. How do you tell a good one from a cheap one? What's the warranty?
A good set of coils will be warranted for a minimum of ten years.
8. Move the belly band and inspect the brushes and the brush holders. As long as the brush has
a thickness of three-eighths of an inch, it will work. Needle-nose plier, pull the lead on each brush,
the brush, they should slide up and down easily, but don't be surprised if you don't pull a wire out
of a brush. This is not a reason not to buy the machine, brushes do get old and they eventually,
we're out.
9. Visually check out the main armature's commentator. It should not have any pits or cracks in the copper.
With an ohm meter, check the resistance between the copper bars and the shaft. It should have no less than 1 megohm.
10. Check the resistance of the shunt coils. This page will show you how
If you have any questions, ideas, or problems, we can help you with them. Please call or email us
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