spudulike

Personally I prefer standard carbs as they can be fixed and adjusted manually plus are cheaper and pretty reliable. If autotune isn't as reliable as the ones on your car, forget it!

Perhaps I should start a dating thread - not sure the wife would approve!

Damn, thought someone wanted technical advice:001_rolleyes:

That was a bummer, the rings and circlips are the weak points on the cheap pistons. It is worth fitting OEM clips and OEM/Caber rings on cheap pistons if that is the only option available. Live and learn.....usually the hard way:blushing:

Done many, the funniest was a MS390 that came in as a box of bits from a guy in the IOM. I rebuilt it and had some strange plastic parts left over, I described them to him and it transpired he was a little inebriated when he took it apart hence the lack of abillity to fix it. The parts - they were off his Toyota Hi Lux and had wondered where they had gone:001_rolleyes:

This was my fix......

I fitted a Golf piston in an MS880 a while ago. If you use the original circlips you should be OK. Some say the OEM piston has a steel insert in the crown but a magnet didn't detect it and cant see it would bond very well or the thinner top part of the crown would be strong. Personally, if the only option is Golf then try one....what can go wrong:001_huh:

The thickness of a typical business card.

The full kit generally covers all the variants of the carb including the needle valve, metering arm, all welh plugs, gaskets, diaphragm and metering spring!

Google Rowena Motors, email them what you want and ask them to send you a Paypal request if that suits. You pay and get the parts 24 hrs later....nice:thumbup:

You are spot on checking the flywheel key. It is also worth re-gapping the coil to flywheel. On bigger two strokes, if this gap is a bit small, it increases the ignition adbvance and can make starting a bit catchy if the ignition is fairly advanced as standard. The MS660 is a bit like that for one!

Yes, it is the Stihl one. It can be fab as it was on this job and next to useless on some of the smaller seals but is worth having in the tool box.

£200-300 depending on overall condition and year. Would be happier on a 20"!

"Crab Kits" whats that, a drop net, length of string and a mackerell head:lol: Yes, Rowena Motors are second to none, the MS200 FULL kit is around £12 inc VAT and delivery, best of all it is original Zama and not a Chinese copy:thumbup: Hugo also did me a big favour when he couldn't supply an acelerator pump kit for a Stihl due to it being OEM only, matched it from my dimensions and a photo to another carb and sent the kit - fitted fine:thumbup:

I think it may scare him:blushing:

OK, 24" chain is 84 drive links, thats 42 cutters and 42 depth gauges/rakers assuming you are not using half or full skip chain. 5 mins gives you 300 seconds so around 7 seconds per cutter and raker set or perhaps 6 seconds to take in to the account rotating the chain to each cutter. I would guess 1 sec per stroke - thats 4 on the cutter and 2 on the raker on a mullered chain??? I am not talking about a chain that needs tickling up but one that has lost its hook, been battered by stone or nail or its cutters are totally uneven!! I would like to see you do one like that in 5 minutes new file or not! A chain that is just losing its edge may be possible but not the sort of sharpening I was suggesting!

Jonsered or Echo is it then Andy:lol:

It is reasonably common for the inexperienced to fit the diaphragm next to the carb body and the spacer gasket between the diaphragm and the cover - this is incorrect and the gasket spacer should be between the diaphragm and the carb body. It is also possible the H&L needle adjusters are incorrect - try 1 & 1/4 on each as a starting point. Other than that, make sure the little gauze filter under the large screw cover is free of woodchip, the fuel filter in the tank is OK and the fuel pipe isn't holed/split and the tank breather is clear. If the fuel cap is loosened a little, does it rev out OK - this indicates a blocked tank breather.

Engines and bearings rust damn quickly if they get wet, as others have said, pull the plug, get rid of the water, get some WD40 down the plug hole, try to get it around the crank bearings. Make sure it is dry and then refule and try to get it started within a day or two and run it up for an hour or so with lots of lube and if possible, keep running it regularly every week or two. You may find it will rust and seize if left over the winter period, probably worth keeping it in the warm for a while after it is running again.

Had a 357XP in, on starting it, revs picked up and then died completely plus it was difficult to start. I also noticed that the clutch drum continued to spin wildly when the engine died which wasn't normal. The carb checked out OK, the clutch drum was a bit wobbly but the oiler pinion was obviously the wrong one as it had a bigger recessed area to accept the clutch - in this case, the drum splines would not mesh at all on the pinion. The owner had fitted a new bearing and suspect a new incorrect 3/8th oiler pinion gear! From my pictures, you can see an inner flange ("a lip" to non engineers:001_rolleyes:) on both pinions, this stops the pinion going in too far and contacting the crank seal. In this case I reckon the original pinion gear had worn this lip away, had slid along the crankshaft and severely worn the seal away - you can see it is polished in the photo below with most of the surface rubber worn away. I got the saw after the new in correct pinion had been fitted! This seal damage would have caused a bad air leak and perfect for the symptoms I had, it had also caused a slight seize (as in the photo) and although it was making 150psi, consulted the owner and decided to fit a new quality meteor piston. I lightly honed the bore to aid the bedding down of the piston, new seal (you can see the pullers I used), new clutch drum, rim and oiler pinion gear. The pressure/vacuum test was perfect and the saw fired up and idles perfectly now. Sometimes the pullers are a bit fiddly but this time they were 100% spot on.

This one is always a marmite/religion type argument - someone told me they could sharpen a 24" chain mullered on a nail in 5 minutes once using files. I would have really liked to see that:001_rolleyes: I use a bench grinder if the chain needs to be trued up due to the cutters being unequal length or being damaged by hitting something it shouldn't. If doing it by file, it takes forever and is the most boring job possible. I use a few techniques with a grinder, if the sparks stop, the disk is glazed and this can be broken with a diamond file. someone earlier said the opposite - I don't get that because our tool makers when I was in manufacturing always did the same, de-glaze if there were no sparks. I also pulse the wheel up and down slowly so it allows the cutter to cool and not glow red:001_rolleyes: This usually works well - I can't get the different disks on mine as it is a cheapy! Files are great for touching up or for fine tuning but on a severely damaged chain needing large amounts taken off, a bench grinder is invaluable!

Thats good, it was a bit of a you know what but got there in the end:thumbup:

1/2 - 2/3rds dealer prices if new, 1/3 - 1/2 dealer prices if good used! Ask the OP what he will pay!

And the fact I sorted his non working one:thumbup: Hope it is still OK?