spudulike

Looks like an insurance claim off your credit card or Paypal then. Hope your friend gets their money back.

They may get the joke now

The clutch won't undo when the brake is put on, it may spin off if the clutch is not on tight and you rev the saw then throttle off fast - seen it mostly on 357XPs and 346XPs mostly. Jamming the brake on does it up! Your 261 clutch had undone locking the drum to the retaining washer and e clip.

Flubbing is what I call "Four stroking", if you rev a two stroke and richen it up whilst running, the revs start to reduce and the saw makes a pulsing flub, flub, flub sound known as four stroking. The extra fuel is actually stopping the saw firing every stroke so it sounds and fires like a four stroke. This phenomena is used as a rev limiter for the engine which is why adjusting the H screw correctly is so important. If your saw wont start on 1 turn, it may have issues such as chip in the gauze filter, split fuel line or an air leak......or just have a carb that runs a little lean.

Yes but you enjoy it and I always wear rubber gloves

I think I would be worried if Joe tried to touch my "cherry tree"

Not a bad haul, got to be worth a few bob

You have the right to cut back both the roots and branches from a neighbours tree to the point of the boundary but if you make the tree unsafe and it causes injury or damage, you will liable. You can't throw the branches back over the fence as this is deemed as fly tipping in law but it is customary to offer them back to the owner. This is a bloody old law where the branches may include fruit and in those medieval days, would have had more value. This is based on what I learnt many years ago at a previous property.....the neighbour was known as "Bell End"....coz he was!!!!

If the carb has no limiter caps, turn both screws in lightly and then out just over one turn on both screws and then adjust the idle. If the saw is in good order, it should cut pretty well. It may be that your saw has other issues and that is why it is bogging. These saws have a strange engine in so much that the lower part is made of engineering plastic and can warp causing air leaks that then can take the top end out - seen a few now. See where these settings take you and if it is screaming on the top end, open the H screw until the saw flubs and smokes and then turn the screw in until the top end cleans up to nearly clean but with a hint of flubbing or four stroking.

Just done a 288XP....bit of a funny one in so much as the owner had trouble starting it and it turned out that he hadn't been using that thumb lever lock between the throttle safety bar and the top cover....weird! I have ported new and near new saws. I do advise the warranty will be void though and it is best to get a bit of use from the saw to ensure the manufacture is good before modification but it is up to the owner.

I've been missing all the fun, same old arguments though.....the saws are noisy......sort of but I try to compromise noise with performance, it didn't take me long to work out big outlets in front of an un-baffled exhaust port weren't too clever! I have just done a MS660 for a guy in Ireland, deafened by anothers home made dual outlet muffler cover....now binned and replaced by my more mellow bark which will work for him. It is just engineering and design. Some get the porting thing, some don't.....not a problem, in my day, some slapped Allspeeds or Microns on their RD350YPVSs and some didn't....some want to always get that bit better out of their tools and some are happy with how it comes out of the factory. I don't force people to go with a ported option.....actually there was this guy with a 346 and I did it by mistake.....he said it was the best mistake ever made but that's another story. Guys ask me to port their kit, I have a chat and if it is for their own use and not to be handed to paid employees then we come to a conclusion - there is no coercion, I just offer a different take on what others offer and the option is either wanted by my customers or not. I do work for contractors, arb firms and one man shows etc. Many just want quality repair work, others want porting and service....no issue one way or another. My porting - I always try to give the customer an obvious gain for a decent price. I look at achieving circa 75% of the available gains for an acceptable cost. If you want to know what those current costs are then just PM me....not too difficult!

You need motion seeking rotary cannons like the one on Aliens:-

They always do when a fault "just disappears", been there and got the t shirt

And the other suggestions??

More likely to need someone that understands that the issues on normal carb saws can actually happen on AT saws and that the AT diagnostic software isn't some sort of silver bullet that will fix a saw with a lap top. You will probably just find the plug is shot, the carb gauze strainer is full of shyte, the air filter is dirty or the pump gasket is perforated....just saying!!!!

Sometimes the needle chrome plating starts bubbling and this makes their closure intermittent. You can sometimes get the rubber on the end of the needle having a little ridge allowing it to leak.....see how it goes and you can use a pressure gauge & pump or pop off tester to see if the needle valve is working OK.

Not a problem, glad to help out again.

No, it is too an extreme mod just to do something like that. When the saw came out, the Arboristsite guys were trying to work it out and think they eventually came to the conclusion that it cleaned the saw making it more environmentally friendly. They also stated that if they manufactured an extremely clean saw, it gave them extra EPA points so they could make a less clean one and the MS461 was one of those. How true....no idea! The flange would come in to action on near the bottom of the downward stroke, the carb has no fresh air strato system so I can only think it is to reduce the amount or fuel air reaching the transfer ports thus making the saw more fuel efficient as all the scavenging would have already happened by then - I guess they fine tuned it with the flange rather than changing the size of the piston windows and transfer port sizes which would be more difficult, costly and time consuming. That is my take on it for all it is worth!

Just to close this one off, the sheath had sheared in two and had then chafed the cable. A new cable and a bit of non related TLC got it going nicely. The sheath is steel and plastic, the metal won't change shape with oiling!

It is a solid alloy of some sort. My thinking is it is added for cleaning up the emissions but wasn't as effective as the strato type saws as the 462 came out to replace it. Some sort of bridge between the 460 and the 462 that gave Stihl a bit of time to develop the later machine.

Gave back the lightly used 2012 MS261 to the owner, explained that the crank hardened coating was shot, showed him the pitting on the shaft with a magnifying glass and then measured the shaft diameter above the circlip, below it and then near the actual clutch showing a nominal 10mm above the circlip and 9.65mm near the clutch - 0.35mm under nominal is well buggered and uneconomical to repair.

On a new saw, full compression won't be there until the cylinder and piston have bedded in. Decomps are actually graded by the size hole in them, the smaller the hole, the less the decomp effect. A hot saw will pull over easier than a cold one and one that has sat a while and has a nice coating of oil over the bore, left after the fuel has evaporated, will need a decomp valve plus manufacturers fit them to protect the starting gear as well as making the saw easier to pull over. You need a decomp on some saws but on many, it is best not to bother.

The picture doesn't show it but the centre section of the flange goes in to the underside of the piston around an inch.

No and definitely NO, it is shaped to go in to the underside of the piston and would have zero bracing effect from its design. It is to do with making the saw a little cleaner and has nothing to do with the strength of the cases.

Lightly hone with new rings, it will help them bed in.