Failure of oil pumps

[Acerforestry]

I'm interested to know the frequency and on which particular makes / models bar oil pump failure occurs. I've recently got a bit of a thing about the Tanaka ECV range (I know, someone has to), but the pumps seem to play up to a ridiculous degree and are not cheap to replace. One bit of advice I've found that could make sense is that running a little fuel or alcohol through the chamber can free up a blockage and remedy any issues - when you consider a lot of the pumps are pretty basic you'd think that there would be little to go wrong, full stop. Thoughts on this please

[Husqvarna King]

Not run a Tanaka saw before, but I had only ever replaced one oil pump in many years of cutting, untill this year, two modern Huskies, two new oil pumps, the pumps seem pretty crap now.

[shillo]

had to replace a couple on the stihl pruner head, old version. annoying as nothing seams to be wrong with it when you strip them out and no amount of cleaning seams to sort out the problem, i just replace them now. But i think they are only a few quid.

[openspaceman]

15 minutes ago, shillo said:

had to replace a couple on the stihl pruner head, old version. annoying as nothing seams to be wrong with it when you strip them out and no amount of cleaning seams to sort out the problem, i just replace them now. But i think they are only a few quid.

Yes I found the same but they only cost about 15 quid. I always meant to dissect one and see what had happened but...

[carlos]

had a few on echo saws fail due to running veg oil and them being left unused for a while, 50 quid a pop to replace!

[Acerforestry]

Ah, its beginning to make sense now - I'm guilty of using veg for the bars and this may be the issue. though there has seldom been more than a week or two pass between the usage of the saw. I can see why this would happen, though that said I have bought two second hand ECV-4501's that have had knackered pumps too, maybe prior owners were doing the same. I think I'm going to try repeated flush through with petrol or similar, nothing to lose as these are 50 odd quid to replace too

[nepia]

9 hours ago, carlos said:

had a few on echo saws fail due to running veg oil and them being left unused for a while, 50 quid a pop to replace!

The problem being that the unused oil cakes?  I thought the only veg oil to use safely was pure rapeseed oil just because it doesn't.  I've been using that for years without problems though as a part-time user.

 

Was your oil rapeseed?

Edited August 25, 2018 by nepia

[Stere]

I use veg oil & wonder if its something to do with the viscosity at different temperatures, could very cold weather be worse?

 

 

[nepia]

Have you got anything similar for rapeseed oil?  Again I've had no problems with viscosity though it has been like water recently.

[carlos]

28 minutes ago, nepia said:

The problem being that the unused oil cakes?  I thought the only veg oil to use safely was pure rapeseed oil just because it doesn't.  I've been using that for years without problems though as a pert-time user.

 

Was your oil rapeseed?

no it was just cheapo veg oil, ive never had a problem in my husky saws and some of them have sat for ages. 

it seems in the echo that the worm gear is made of a harder metal than the pump which seems a bit silly.

ive just put normal smelly bar oil in my echo now but im not that keen on it.