Chainsaw Repair

There's been a guy using modern day epoxy capacitors in them. I had a 031 for a few years. I noticed that he bought up all the supply of the capacitors from Digikey and you could only get them from him. He was friendly and cheap enough. It actually was a good thing for he would sell you one capacitor at a good price whereas the original source had a minimum transaction price. Only thing is I cannot remember his name but you will come across him if you keep searching for 031 not starting or running.

The layman can check the continuity of the primary and secondary of the coil as well as isolation between between the primary and secondary.

There is a reasonable measure of electrical resistance of both the primary and secondary windings. For example the primary should be one or two ohms and the secondary should be more than a thousand ohms resistance - typically 6-8K.

That being said, the typical problem with the Stihl 031 early points type ignition failure is the condenser and not the points or the coil.   

Coil to flywheel clearance is a business card or about .010"

Points are .016"