spudulike

Same here - just fill her up and go for a ride on a warm summer evening, eyeing up the tottie heading for the local pubs and giving it a good fistful on the lanes:thumbup: Happy days!

I checked my holes tonight:blushing: and each one had the poison in them from the previous night. I think I may have done the not so little blighters in now:thumbup:

Probably worth trying Gardenkits mower thread, may get better advice there:thumbup:

The two I have used went straight in and no issues with vibes etc!

If I have had your clutch off Andy, the bearing has been greased:thumbup:

250 X7.......that takes me back:thumbup:

Fitted a couple of aftermarket crankson 660s, on one machine the owner seized it by lending it the machine out:001_rolleyes: the other is still running to my knowledge. If the top end is still OK, fit a new crank, it will take a day but good satisfaction!

I think we all know what we do and all three of us are similar in our methods, one neat little trick is to use one of those flexible single LED inspection torches and shine it down the plug hole - it is a very quick and easy way of telling if a saw is good or bad. I have had saws up to 180psi still run like a bag of XXXX, there is the seal from the ring and a secondary seal from the piston body and skirt. On this 180psi saw, the skirt was extremely worn but the ring was fine. It had lots of compression, would start but no torque whatever - just goes to show what a worn piston will do. Yes, you can get good compression figures on worn/seized pistons but it is the inspections that we all do and our experience that separates us from the much less experienced. If you have measured 100+ machines, you kind of build up an expectation of what you should get before even putting in the gauge and pulling the engine over! The PDF in question does mention warming up the machine before measuring. I tend to always measure stone cold and only measure hot if the machine is a bitch when warm. Probably no one method is right and it is the fixed and reliable machine at the end of a repair that is the proof of a job well done:thumbup:

Yes but these big engines can be pretty hard to pull over so is this figure with using the decomp valve in or out. I know the MS660 for instance often runs in good condition around 145psi, the MS460 can have around 170psi in well used condition - 110psi is pretty low in my books unless a decomp is used or it has an auto decomp valve. I have seen tht the bigger machines will run ok with much lower compression than much smaller engines, then there is heat - it knocks of around 20 - 30psi hence starting a hot machine with low compression is usually a pig.........anyway, you know all this:sneaky2: I have seen an old Poulan having 130psi as normal and ran fine also but my general rule of thumb is the above and generally stands good. On bigger machines, a simple drop test on the recoil can tell you a fair bit on the state of the cylinder and piston!

Who needs someone to tell you what compression a saw should make or a manual: - 200+ tuned 170+ very good 150+ normal well run in 130 pretty shagged 100 buggered 75 well buggered One of the first checks to do on any machine in for service IMO!

Starts degrading after circa one month and will get worse, the longer it stands - it is the fuel breaking down the oil that causes issues. I am sure one of the Aspen men will be along soon!

Must be that time of year, had one the size of a kitten the other night but couldn't get a clear shot on it but put out a cage trap the next night and bingo, got it and then blasted it with the air rifle. Bait - I have used suet and grain bird food in a small dish and they also like Marathon.......sorry snickers bars! Traps - they need to be long enough that the rat can go right in. The false catches are generally mice eating the bait, setting the trap off and then getting out - they fit through small holes, believe me! I have contemplating having the trigger set to only work on a rat style tug but not done this to date. I have a number of rat holes under my shed, thought one was a mole hole and used a mole trap - caught a good size rat in it - busted its spine:thumbup: I now have them on a stable diet of Wilko rat poison and will keep going until I am clear. I usually like using the PCP AirArms rifle on them:thumbup:

Yup, sort of brass sealed circular tube with a lever type machanism, the pressure unwinds the spiral a little and the lever mechanism accentuates it:thumbup: Bit like a hollow toothpaste tube bent in to a circle - get some pressure in it and it trys to open up......understand?

Will you do any porting work on it Wes?

That is a loaded question. Compression gauges typically either have a schrader valve or a rubber ball valve in the end. The rubber ball type typically make a reading very fast 1-2 pulls where the schrader valve types take around 5-6 pulls. The schrader valves are not the type you get in car tyres but have an extremely low spring rate and are the type used in gas sniffer meters. So......the type of valve can influence the reading - the only place I have managed to get the valves from is Snapon as I was blowing them regularly on the ported saws I do. It is always good to do a couple of slow pulls when using a schrader type compression gauge. Me being me have found a presta type valve that has a low opening and sealing force and have converted my gunson to take it and reads as it should, these last much longer and don't break even with my ported portfolio. I have a Pickvant Sykes unit and it reads low and some car types won't even get a reading on small plant like this. I have heard that a 14mm gauge stepped down to the 10mm size will lose around 20psi down to the volume of the combustion chamber being increased by the size of the adaptor internal bore - my experience sort of follows this theory. You asked:lol:

You guys have a strange way of bargaining:confused1:

Ah..... it is worse than I imagined, he has found the Irish Whisky:lol:

If the chain tension is changing all the time, it can be the oiler isn't working well, usually accompanied by a squeeky chain.

Oh God, ya been on the Guiness again Wes:001_rolleyes: Bad boy:001_tt2: On the whacking the bearings - when the crank is pushed in to the crankcases, it sort of biases the bearings and makes them tight, belting the ends of the crank, resettles the bearings and loosens them up as they should be. Ignore Wes, I think he is settling tooo well in to Irish life:thumbup:

Again on the 385???? What are you doing to it:confused1:

Sounds like clutch/clutch drum issues - probably a dry needle bearing - worth also wobbling the end of the crank to check the clutch side crank bearing. If the chain is done up excessivly it can knock it out

If the crank is hard to turn with either no spark plug in or the top end missing, you need to belt the end of the crank on both ends to re-site the ball race - it is typical and part of a rebuild - if all is good, the bottom end will go from tight to loose within a couple of taps - this is assuming the crank bearings were put in flush and correctly! 181SE and 298XPs are some of the hardest machines to turn over - no decomp, no auto retard on the ignition for easy starting so they kick back and have high compression. The 298XP I once had felt like it was seized solid when I got it and it gradually turned over and realised it was just compression and oil residue in the bore:blushing:

You have some parts missing - 026 is it?

Yup, they are good, saw one do a rat at Dungeness once - good job:thumbup: Too many sheds round here with the damn things living under them and too many snobs saying "we don't have rats" yeah right - I can see you do from the holes under my bloody fence:001_rolleyes: Perhaps I will lob the bodies on to their lawns:sneaky2:

You couldn't handle the power Wes.....just thinking of you:001_rolleyes: