spudulike

If an 880 or 088 stops oiling or not enough, it is often the oiler arm (the one that locates on the outer rim of the clutch drum) on the big nylon gear slipping around the gear. Just for info....usually comes with the symptom of "lack of power".

Pretty typical starting method for most big capacity vintage saws without decomp valves.

I have given a lot of saws a shot of GT85 down the carb and if this is done with the throttle open and the saw is pulled over with the throttle open, the saw will run up with full revs for around 1 second and then die. This will even work if no carb is fitted!! If the OP opens the throttle, sticks some easy start, WD40, GT85 or similar down the back end of the carb and then pulls the saw over with the throttle open, it should roar in to life if the rest of the saw is working OK. If the saw has good compression and ignition/spark/timing is OK, it should fire up for a split second by doing the above. The baffling thing is that if the rest of the saw is OK, why isn't this working. Have you tried swapping the plug over? They don't often go bad but it can happen.

So, has the machine run with the old coil on it? Has it run at all in your ownership? Sometimes you get some pretty weird issues when a saw has passed through less able hands and had someone else do some less educated repairs on it. I have seen machines have the wrong coil AND flywheel on them...that was a really interesting one!! I would check the coil black wire goes to earth and the red wire has continuity to the solenoid. If that red wire is broken, you will get some strange running issues.

125 is low if measured on the correct gauge. It is worth comparing to a good running saw as I have seen enough measurements made with car type gauges. The difference is a car cylinder shifts A LOT of air and the gauges use a schrader valve (like a bicycle inner tube valve) with a much higher spring rate. The gauges for small engines have a much weaker spring in the valve and measure much higher than car gauges so, please check on a decent machine. The lower ring looks a bit gummed but the piston looks decent so it isn't too bad. Sometimes if you rock the flywheel to and forth very slightly, you can see the ring is free in the groove. Just to clarify, the coil the saw always ran with....is it the same part number as the later one and you have tried BOTH coils on the machine with the same result? I have seen the small Mtronic wires shear and this can cause all types of issues so worth doing a continuity check from where they start and where they end. You may have to get creative with a needle or similar to get to the contact but worth checking. The fact a bit of easy start wont give it a burst of life means it is unlikely to be a carb/fuel issue. Did you have the flywheel off to check the key?

The basics are that combustion needs fuel, compression and spark but life is never that simple, the spark needs to be timed and the fuel needs to be metered correctly. The saw should fire up with a squirt of easy start down it and typically rev up for half a second before dying. Compression should be over 150psi measured on a small engine compression gauge and not an automotive one. The gunson hi gauge should give you a correct reading as others will. It sounds like the saw is firing but not starting, the easy start should get it to run for a very short time and if this isn't happening, the fact the spark is good leads me to low compression. Have you pulled the muffler off to look at the piston?

It was all in the YouTube vid....worth watching if you have that sort on interest.....most don't

Have you got the correct coil on it? I have not known a Solenoid to totally fail like this.

I also have a Fiskars X27 so can compare the two at some stage.

No, it came with it, it was just not finished very well.

Another find at the local antique/collectables/vintage shop. I noticed this, looked a bit too nice but on closer inspection, it turned out to be a Brades splitting axe, 5LB in weight. The handle had a coat of wood stain which I removed and used linseed oil on and looks to be hickory with a nice bit of shaping on it. The axe head had been removed and refitted upside down....no idea why people get it wrong - the flatter edge of the axe always goes to the top unless it is of a "Kent" design where there is no incorrect way as long as the mounting hole isn't tapered. I drilled out the original wedge, cleaned up the mount, smothered it with PVA and refitted with a home made ash wedge...nice tight fit. Looks pretty nice and oh, I forgot to mention the price.......£10!!

I once purchased a jerry can with a gallon of fuel in it, the fuel was worth £5 and I paid that sum for the can....work that one out

Sounds about right to me. Not particularly valuable to most. Model Profile: 08 WWW.ACRESINTERNET.COM

You could try something like this....

Yup, got to have a niche that other people aren't doing or aren't doing well. The old adage that if you turn a hobby you enjoy in to a job, it will never feel like work is very true. From my years fixing and tuning saws, I had very little local or countrywide competition that impacted on my business and the above was very true.