Chainsaw Repair

Hi everyone!

I've got a 14" Poulan Woodshark that I cant crank. I bought it last year and it ran great. I used it for lite tree trimming last summer before storing it for the winter. I took it out in May and used it for about 1 day, then put it back into storage. At that time, it worked like new.

The next time I needed it was about 2 weeks ago. Got it out, pulled the cord, cord locks up when I try to pull it. It only pulls about 5 inches before locking. It acts and feels like the compression is out of sync.

Here are a few observations

1) When I remove the muffler, I can see the piston moving, but the cord still locks
2) When I remove the spark plug, everything is smooth. I can easily pull the cord out to its limit, piston moves easily, etc
3) The fly wheel is in good shape, including the pin.
4) Air filter is clean
5) New gas mix

Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.

Chane

Since you know how to pull the muffler and the plug I would pull them both and then rotate the engine slowly and use a flash light to look through the exhaust port and look down the spark plug hole to see if there is something in there

OK, did an inspection, and there is no trash in Cylinder

or to see if something has been hitting on the piston top or on the side someplace.

Both cylinder and piston are clean. No sign of damage.

I would also pull off the starter cover just 4 screws usually and look at the fly wheel and make sure nothing is stuck to the magnets.

Reinspected the Flywheel, the magnets are clean and the pin shows no damage.

Does it only stop rotating when the plug is in and will it completely rotate when the plug is out?

Correct, it only stops rotating when the plug is in and will it completely rotate when the plug is out.

 I went back and read your post again and I wonder if you have the correct plug in it and if the plug is hitting in there.

The plug in it now is the one that came with the chainsaw. I put a new plug in, but it didn't help, so I put the old plug back in.

I had a saw that was leaking bar oil into the crankcase which caused so much compression you couldn't crank it over unless the spark plug was removed.