Chainsaw Repair

Axiom #1
"I will never buy another saw without pulling the muffler first."

How many axioms are there?
I know I missed two when I bought that saw.  I could have pulled the mufler and I should have pulled the clutch cover and looked at the chain brake,  sprocket,  bar and chain,  to get some idea of how it had been treated.  One thing that mislead me was the seller telling me that the chain wasn't a match for the saw.  It hadn't been run like that so why look....  When I got home I found what looked like the wrong clutch cover,  the wrong bar (14" 3/8LP as per my Stihl 021) and an 18" 0.325"/0.058" chain.  At least the rim sprocket was 0.325" pitch.

Gregg, the 'kitty food can' method is only a very rough indication. I have a 100ml test tube (100ml because it makes the calculations easy). I put 100ml of fuel in it and let it evaporate, if there is 2ml of oil left in the tube then the mix was at 50:1, 2.5ml=40:1, 3.1ml=32:1,etc. While this is a more accurate method it is still only an indication depending on how long the fuel has been in the tank some may have evaporated throwing your measurement off. I have never had much luck letting the fuel stand in a closed tube and wait for the oil to separate from the fuel because the oil is designed to stay mixed with the fuel.

Have a look here:
http://chainsawrepair.createaforum.com/ported-saws/piston-failure-analysis/

Fuel mix problems are pretty evident by looking at the piston no matter what the above test shows. If I go to look at a saw I take a very basic small set of tools with me, just those tools including a small flashlight (torch in Brit) that will allow me to get the muffler off and have a look inside. And +1 on 660Magnum's axiom #1!

So after the firewood posse, are you fellows headed off for a pub crawl?

Well,  we had a really good session with the firewood posse.  The 154 with a carefully sharpened chain cut like a champ.  Some 2-1/2' wattle logs,  I think they were wattle,  landowner said so,  very dense,  fine grained,  white colour,  very straight,  like from a plantation,  a couple of shakes or visible stress lines near the centre that split well with the ax.  Anyway the Husky 154 (18") had hot restart problems,  so I grabbed the 14" Stihl 021 and with a new chain it cut these logs quite well also.

On the first night I tightened the carb mounting screws,  which improved the hot starting problem,  but I need to give the fuel system a full look over.  I think the carb mounting screws might have been  left a little less than tight because I was scared of stripping the threads when I assembled the saw after a jamed piston a couple of years ago.

I will have to find time to play some more.

You guys were a lot of fun.
Thanks again,  and cherio.
(see if you can figuire out what cherio means,  though I s'pose Google etc make it pretty easy)

Gregg.