Chainsaw Repair

Well, I took it to West Hill Saw House, in West Berlin, VT. It's an hour drive from me, but I've heard he's pretty good, and I was passing within 15 minutes of his place anyway. I had played him that audio file over the phone. All he could say was "that sounds weird". I was expecting the worst: a rebuild or even a new saw. He ran it a bit, and after about 5 or 6 cuts, it started making that odd sound. Turns out it was a bad ignition module. He swapped out the module, fired it up and tuned the high speed mixture a bit, and it's running fine. $50 for parts and labor.

I've not heard what a bad ignition module sounds like before, but apparently that may not have helped me anyway, since this sound does not seem typical to anyone. He went right to the ignition when he saw how it ran OK until it heated up.

More good news: he did not test the compression, but did pull the starter cord to feel how tough it was. His opinion: "No way that compression is down to 110. I'd bet you are up close to new." I had not gotten around to opening it up to check the cylinder yet, so this was a real relief.