spudulike

Around £3.20 per outing on the beach, it won't make me rich but is good escapism. 30 years ago, I used to detect in a wood that was used as a WW2 ammo dump now that was interesting, found some stuff there!

What are you doing, milling, felling??? I have three detectors as it is something to do on the beach when the old girl is glued to the tennis when we are away. All will detect to around 6-12 inches + depending on the depth of the object, size, metal and the amount of mineralisation around the object. If you are milling, I would say it would work OK and be worth having, felling, it will detect the object around the peripheral of the trunk but not too much over 6" and as long as there is no other metal in the area. Small staples and the like, you will be down to 3-4". My detectors are a Whites modified discriminator for dry sand and a C scope PI for working on wet sand with high mineralisation.

One of the first things that should be done is a compression check as without it, you don't know what you have got and if you change the piston, how will you know if it has improved the situation at all - it will probably reduce the compression until run in. You are probably changing the coil and piston for no reason bar that the may possibly be an issue and most likely changing them with inferior quality aftermarket parts dubious manufacturer. I have had a couple of saws where the bore ended up being very slightly oval, one had the piston fitted round the wrong way round and forget the other but I simply couldn't get the compression up to decent levels so the saws were hard to start and lacked any power. The only solution was to change the cylinder on these. A very unusual fault but it does happen and the compression gauge told me a story! Compression and carb issues must make up a good 85-90% of issues in bad running saws, coils very rarely fail and if they do, you can get total failure, failing after a period of use or just the old limited revs failure where the saw won't rev up properly. I appreciate you are trying but the way you are going, your saw will be like triggers broom, you will have nothing left on the saw that is original and will have spent a fortune on it. Glad you sorted the flooding issue, the metering arm is the usual place to check along with the diaphragm on older machines. When you say the machine lacks power: - 1) Does the chain stop in the cut AND the revs die to the point of stalling 2) Does the chain continue to run at high speed and the saw revs high but doesn't cut 3) Does the saw rev high but the chain speed slows right down in the cut Be careful in answering the above because each has its own set of faults that will cause the symptoms. I can sort of see why you are doing this but despair about where it may end up. Diagnosis is a precise skill, some people have a shotgun approach, I prefer to align myself with the American Sniper, one shot, one part, one fix! I guess it is why people like what I do. PS - If your JB is a rubbery compound, you are fine, if it is grey and rock hard like a grey araldite, you have cocked up.

Just make sure the oil doesn't dry or get sticky when dry. A small issue for the owner but a bloody great big one when it comes to maintenance and cleaning the stuff off. Early bio oils were a mare.

It would change it but it is still more accurate than pretty much any other method bar swapping the flywheel.

So, going back to my bespoke patented method, using another machine, put a flexible spacer stop in through the spark plug hole, push it against the cylinder wall and turn the flywheel clockwise until the spacer is holding the piston off TDC and photograph the flywheel. All you then need to do on your machine is to put a smear of Loctite around the crank taper, slide on your flywheel, using the same spacer on your machine, replace the flywheel giving another 5 degrees of advance and tighten the nut carefully and keep rechecking the position of the flywheel - it can be tapped round with a drift and hammer if necessary and once reasonably tight, use a stop and crank it up then check the position again. This way you will get it right within a degree or two. Any other method is a bit hit or miss.

OK, sounds round about right although I used a screw in piston stop and did the same, rotate one way and then the other then rotating the degree wheel until both degrees clockwise and anticlockwise match and the middle point will logically be TDC. I reckon we are now in the 0.00001% of the UK population that know what the feck we are talking about!!!! Interesting you marked the flywheel and used a static point on the saw, I made a graduated scale and screwed it around the flywheel and used a mark on the flywheel to get the timing. The 066 has a nice gap over the top of the flywheel which worked fine for me. When I did this, I didn't compute that as soon as I rotated the flywheel on the crank, the scale would need redoing and ran 50 degrees for a brief moment - it didn't sound too good. I think for your method, you won't get this issue but it hurts my head working it out, similar method though.

That looks black to me??? Not the bright blue colour I was expecting? How are you measuring the degrees with a strobe? and how did you get TDC? Post a pic as I know how I got there and it wasn't easy! Thinking about it now hurts my head

I don't know but the part is cheap and you could try it. Sounds like you either have chip residue in your oil tank, which is a common one or the oil just isn't suited to these saws. You could try thinning it down with a suitable thinning agent, not sure what as diesel, petrol, spirit defeat the point of using a bio oil. Not seen the Echo strainer but it may be worth trying a Husky or Stihl one if they fit as they are "strainers" rather than "filters" and will stop the larger pieces of chip blocking the pump.

Yup, big shame, been listening to Rush since the mid 70s, some weird lyrics that somehow resonate with life in general but a very distinctive sound. I am getting a bit fed up with seeing some of my childhood stars shedding their mortal coil, especially at an early age. Anyway, here is a very apt Rush song.....enjoy

I don't think I have ever seen a blue limited coil on a 395XP, they are usually black and unlimited and some of the machines I have seen in have been under a year old so that's a bit strange. It should be part number 503 63 98 01 and your part number makes no sense. The SEM bit makes more sense and shows an ignition ramp up of 8 degrees from idle on this webpage - Small engine ignition systems Properties - SEM AB - MAFIADOC.COM MAFIADOC.COM Suitable for engines that require a flat ignition curve. Ignition voltage. Using effective electronics, a maximum ignit...

With a saw of this value, I know what I would do and that is using the stop method. With the MS150s I use a very specific method for stopping the piston that has worked on a few that have sheared their keys as yours has and it gives a very precise result rather than guessing as we are discussing whether the advance is 23 or 30 degrees. The coil may also be smart with different rpm/advance ramps so difficult to gauge. I cant tell when the next 395XP will roll in, they are usually fairly common but having said that....... What we need is a 395XP owner with a little engineering experience and a camera!

OK, if it is a RTVS jointing compound, it should be OK.

I think you are expecting the unlikely if you think someone will know the ignition timing of the 395 so you can dial yours in exactly with a strobe and think it would test even the guys at Husqvarna. Much depends on the accuracy of your gauge and am guessing you are using a timing wheel to graduate this and a strobe to measure against it. My Red Eye ended up at around 30 degrees from a Stihl spec of 27.5 - 32 degrees so think your 19 degrees will ebb away power as I reckon it is a bit conservative. Probably better that someone with a 395 can lock the piston and photograph the flywheel or wait until perhaps I get another one in. Shame as I have just done one over the Christmas break. I have done a few MS150s like this that have sheared their key and got the timing bang on and is a reliable method. 19 degrees won't bugger the machine up, if you take it too far, the machine will rumble in a most disconcerting way - my saw did and made a noise that spoke to me - it said, "you open the throttle, I will grenade"

Is that Monty Don, the Gardeners World fella? Not sure he would know anything about ignition timing

The clam should use a flexible liquid gasket and not JB epoxy weld, it may do the job for a while but isn't the correct material.

Mmmm, good luck getting anyone in the UK answering this one with any knowledge or experience as it is a bit specialized and probably beyond most but having set the timing on a 066 red eye fitted with a much later coil and sorting a few dodgy MS150 flywheels in my time............... I would take another 395 unmodified, put a spacer between the piston and the squish band (through the plug hole makes sense), turn the flywheel in one specific direction and work out where a chosen flywheel fin lines up with a fixed point - perhaps part of the coil. If you then compare this to your machine, you can see how far from standard you are and how much advance you have as 1mm on the edge of the flywheel (of this size) equates to one degree. I usually run 4-6 degrees advance on from standard on my standard build - much easier if the key is in place but other than sodding around with strobe timing lights as I did on my red eye 066 (circa 22-23 degrees at idle), this method is much easier and is reliable. Most modern saws do have some advance and retard curve as we all know....two strokes like low advance at idle, rapidly rising to 22-27 at mid revs then rapidly falling off when flat out otherwise, big bangs which is nothing like four strokes which advance throughout their rev range. For those who haven't a clue what we are talking about.....go back to X factor, dancing on ice or some other inane TV prog!!!

The past year should have been kind to anyone with a pension plan investing in equity. No changes to pensions here but took life easier last year and will do the same for the next few years. Pensions are best planned at 20 years and not 45 years - treat it like growing an Oak tree, plant the acorn at 1 year and you end up with a decent tree later in life, leave it until 45 and you will get......a small shrub!

You can usually tell mid/bad air leaks as the machine will stay running even with the idle screw right out, that and the saw holding on to revs when the throttle is snapped shut. Probably not an air leak but if a novice has been rebuilding the saw, who knows. Were the seals inserted properly, the clam sealed with correct liquid gasket, was the coil to flywheel set correctly, was the inlet manifold and all its support rings assembled correctly? Was the piston taken off, was it put back the correct way round - seen THAT before! Was the carb rebuilt correctly, gaskets in the correct orientation, metering arm height correct? Has the carb been set correctly, compression...who knows etc etc! Spark plug - seen these give some weird results before, HT lead.....checked for continuity, need I go on!!! Perhaps one of our members is local and can help, where in the country are you?

No......... keep it going, we could make 2021 with this one and just giving it to someone who can fix it spoils all the fun and it is saving money.....unless you work out the time spent at your normal hourly work rate and........anyway, it is a 211, it would be difficult to keep it an economical repair especially as it has been completely apart by someone who hasn't done this sort of work before...never good! The new analysis/info could mean anything but compression and piston condition would be my first call as it usually is when I get a machine in. anything 150psi+ would be OK, 170psi better.

Shaking like a Polaroid picture!

Neighbourly disputes are nearly always expensive with the only winners being the solicitors. Talking it over reasonably is usually the best way forward but some people are utter twats and fail to see logic, common sense, fair play etc .....just how life is! Legally, you can cut off anything that overhangs the boundary including the roots but if the trees/shrubs die or become dangerous, you will be liable to the owners costs of any damage if they fall down or die. I have had tree issues in the past and moved house to get away from the fella we called "The Bell End"!

Got to leave it on the grass otherwise it would be dancing around in circles! Are those the neighbours who are stuffing cheese in to their ears

The reg is correct for a 1.4 Audi A2, perhaps you turned away a good customer.....not!

Anything is better than nothing. I am running a cheapo one but it has been going for well over a year so no complaints for £45! I would go for a brushless motor and spend £100 or under as if it fails, it won't stop your work. My brushed motor one lasted a year and that was it, this brushless oiled motor is working better and has lasted longer being used every day.