spudulike

Spraying carb cleaner around the manifold condenses the fuel and causes the machines idle to change even on a healthy machine. This is down to the carb cleaned taking heat away from the manifold to evaporate the solvent and basically turns the vapour back to fluid! Better to roll some light oil around the areas. OEM cylinder - good, aftermarket carb....can be good or bad. I have seen these on MS200s and have had to modify the throttle valve to get them to work anything like the standard unit and was pretty poor TBH. Personally I would either rebuild the original carb or purchase a new/second user OEM one and try that. A bad air leak will cause the saw to rev out but not idle well. Try moving the L screw out 3-4 turns and if you then get some sort of idle then it is probably a bad leak but if it does nothing, you most likely have a carb issue, Making the L screw super rich sort of counteracts the air leak but is NOT a solution, just a diagnostic tool! After doing this sort of thing a bit, the machines sort of tell you what is going on through their behaviour!

What sort of Loctite are you using?

You would usually set the new carb to one turn out on the H & L screws, set the idle screw so you can see a bit of daylight around the throttle valve plate and then fire it up and just make the slight adjustments needed to the H,L and idle screw. If the carb is the correct part then it should really be a simple job and if the top end is either OEM or a quality aftermarket part, then all should be good. If you have used the cheapest top end then expect around 140psi and it to be a bitch to start hot. If you have used an aftermarket carb then expect anything between the set up being as OEM new to being like pissing in a force 10! You spends your money and takes the chance.

Beats using those smelly noisy chainsaws and looks very safe

I once had a 346 in with three cylinders, all shot. The owner had put on new cylinder after new cylinder and trashing them without realising the big end was on the way out and spitting out random bits of bearing cage. I got there in a short time and stopped the repeated waste of money and there is the lesson! As others have said, you will need to pressure/vacuum check the saw and make sure the saw carb is tuned correctly. you could just change all the seals and lines but I have seen a certain MS660 that had fractures to the crankcase causing air leaks. I did manage to seal it and port it and it is still running 3 years later so sometimes not actually doing the test can miss issues. A lot of these aftermarket kits are a bit iffy and tend to have poor compression and this will lead to a boggy saw....I would personally always use OEM or Meteor.

That's a good price!

My trainer choice is a summer one - if the ground is generally good and it hasn't been raining then they are comfortable and lighter than boots. I wouldn't be wearing them in the middle of winter on rutted muddy ground but would on the costal walks we do in the summer!

Well....had to be didn't I....I actually tried one of those £10 ones off ebay in the early days.....totally shyte and fortunately it was on a shot cylinder!

I would suggest that getting some cheap kit off ebay is a short cut to trashing the cylinder! I invested in the correct kit some time ago and includes various taps, reamers and wrenches. I use a mix of helicoils, stainless or carbon steel inserts depending on hole size and damage. The issue here is that the original repair has failed, this is probably due to the receiving thread being poorly formed by a cheap tap or the repair been poorly carried out. If a new insert is a loose fit when this thread has been chased out, you will be forced to go to the next size up of insert. This will depend on the land around the hole, your insert and tap system......welcome to my land! The benefit of solid inserts is that you can use thread-lock on them.

It all depends on: - 1) Typical distances you walk. 2) Your budget. 3) Typical terrain 4) Time of year you walk I have a friend whose boots cost five times mine and he gets whacked after two miles! I don't tend to wear mine much and use decent leather trainers (well worn in) during the summer and wellies or walking boots in the winter depending on distances and terrain. Our typical walk is 6-12 miles though so probably not mega £££ footwear territory.

Had a 360 in and was not happy at high revs - the H screw was a bit lean IMO, richened it right up until it was farting like a granny on beans and then leaned it until it was revving well - made all the difference!

The length of the time to seize on poor or lean fuel will depend on the load on the saw. You may get away with revving a saw under no load with little or no oil in the fuel but put it to a large piece of wood with a decent size bar on it then it will seize a damn site quicker due to the load on the saw. I have seen saws rev out and hit decent high revs and then crap out under load due to issues with fuel lines, fuel filters and carb issues. Putting a saw under load will always test it more than free revving. I guess if you took one of those laser temperature gauges and measured the temperature of the cylinder, the operating temperature under different fuels and conditions could be measured but in short - more load = more temperature!

No idea, ask RobD and I am sure he will sort it. Las Vegas to Wicklow, not much difference really

Blimey Wes, where have you been???

The strato saws seem to suffer from the air filters not being cleaned. Less supporting area on the piston skirts, fine dust gets through from poor maintenance (or lack of maintenance) and compression falls off until it stops working. The solution is to remove the air filter, split it and then clean both halves with a compressor and a bit of spirit or lube oil. Most people seem to brush the top of the air filter and the bottom is covered in fine woodchip which eventually finds its way in! The pic below is from a 560, the filter looked relatively clean but look at the difference between the cleaned mesh panel and the blocked one - it was also running lean due to the autotune making up for the blocked air filter!

The ebay listing was genuine, the fraudster just used the ebay listing photos and description for a Gumtree fraud.

Looks like Gumtree have removed the listing, pretty quick tbh after I reported it. At least it is a positive response from Gumtree!

Thanks, will look at the link and drop him a line.

Got a guy I know thinking of getting someone to convert the stump in his garden in to something of beauty, perhaps an owl! I believe it is yew and just wanted to know if any carver in the North Herts area would and could carve this in to an owl for a reasonable price? Got no idea is we are barking up the wrong tree or not as carving isn't my thing so either PM me or post if interested. Cheers.

A customer nearly got scammed by this - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Husqvarna-357xp-20-034-Chainsaw-/172859384609?hash=item283f38e321%3Ag%3AtKEAAOSwCXxZtPJJ&nma=true&si=n%2Fxk5XD5PShwuzwcGwWnbj82FOc%3D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557 And https://www.gumtree.com/p/chainsaws/husqvarna-357xp-chainsaw/1271291959 The same photos but on the Gumtree advert, the seller wants to be paid by Paysafe - lots of very convincing emails but it is a scam. One in Essex, the other Yorkshire! Take care out there!

No but I do have some hens teeth and rocking horse manure....not forgetting a couple of Holy Grails

Yes, we are in dialogue!

Not sure who you are asking but I don't although I may be able to lay my hands on a pristine 365XT if interested!

I was using agency workers many years ago and phoned the agency to ask for workers that had lace up shoes, baffled, the girl from the agency asked why? I said that the ones they were sending were that stupid they had to wear slip ons as there was no way they could do up shoe laces......wasn't far from the truth either

I reckon Matty is spot on, easy diagnosis - start the saw, take the chain brake off, put it on the floor, hold the engine down firmly and pull the top handle around a bit so it flexes on the AV mounts. If the revs change then the manifold is the most likely culprit unless the throttle linkage has got hooked up somehow or something else is loose on the carb etc.