spudulike

I think it is one for the owner to decide upon after all it is his saw and cash, I have filled the crankcase cavity with petrol then drained it out and used WD40 and carb cleaner on it - still needs a bit more attention but is much cleaner now and the bearings feel good but take your point on the cages. The £100 parts plus £30 quality piston plus £15 plus my labour starts making this repair uneconomical on an older saw which is why I try to reach a half way point to where the owner gets a decent repair and I havent overdone the cost of spares. As I say - customer will take the call on this one but reckon he will take it as it is and see how it goes. Will keep everyone posted:thumbup:

Good result - if your dealer supplies it direct it may be worth talking to him about the work you do but glad it all turned out OK:thumbup:

Well spotted:thumbup: the saw is pretty old, in an ideal world you are spot on and fitting these parts is good advice but the saw is old and has some sentimental value and like always, am trying to meet customer expectations on cost whilst doing a repair up to a good standard. Don't think a £400 repair bill would cut it! All I have done so far is to take the pot off, clean and inspect it, a decent clean with petrol and a spin of the crank with the coil off will show up if the bearings are a bit slack and have play - will do this before buying the piston but hopefully, if I clean it out, the saw will have an extended life without heavy cost. A cheap way to sort the flywheel is to take metal of the opposite side of the flywheel - perhaps not in the book but should even up any imbalances! I haven't even taken the cover off yet, better have a closer look before I splash out any expense - may find other horror stories:thumbdown:

Second on Bacton woods - best woodland I have been to in a while was on the Isle of Wight - ancient Oak woodland - not seen woods like that for a while and also saw red squirrels:thumbup:

Wilkinsons £5.00

Nice job - exhaust - BBQ paint or stove paint as previoiusly advised:thumbup:

I know what you mean but the saw had been seized and someone had fitted a new piston without cleaning the bore, the grey sludge is a mixture of petrol, aluminium that the new rings have worn from the bore and a little WD40 I put in the bore as the saw was dry and I wanted to measure the compression. Bit of a mess but probably looks worse than it really is - will take a judgement on the bearings but there is no play and the crank bearings spin freely even without cleaning. One thing - a new flywheel:confused1:what is your thinking on this?

Todays project - 026, low on compression, a glance down the plug hole, the bore looked quite clean - Took the exhaust off and the piston is badly scored, stripped the top end out and wow - what a load of grey sludge is on all the parts. Someone had rebuilt this saw and it never ran well afterwards - this was before I got it. The bore looks like it has cleaned itself as I got very little aluminium off it, the pic is the bore before cleaning. A new piston will get it going, the crankcase needs flushing out - fortunately the aluminium is soft and fine and the bearings feel sound but will retest after cleaningl:thumbup: Pics -

You're a bit sharp for your own good:thumbup: Back to the 023, here are the images I promised: -

Busy day today - the MS200T had the carb replaced, idle was shot, absolutely awful, idle was dying, up to around 4k rpm then stalled, reving poor, worked a bit of magic and all is now sound, right back to smooth even idle and revving nicely, will tach tomorrow. Stihl 023 has had a new piston fitted, will post picturtes tomorrow. Nice compression but the aftermarket carb is now givinng me grief, nice bit of pulling power at full bore that was missing before but the idle is intermittent, have asked the owner if he has the original carb - got to be better than this one! Fiished up fitting new clutch springs to the MS200T, the chain was running all the time - I like the saws I service to be fully sorted before they go out:thumbup:

Star Trek Channel 4

Re bearings, use a little two stroke oil on hte small end, big end and crank bearings. I use a High melting point grease on most other areas and copperslip on the sprocket and silicone lube on the recoil. Like I said in my PM, be sure to fix the route cause of the original seizure, it is very difficult to guide someone without all th ekit and skills but feel free to ask questions as you go along.

Nice saw to play with, had one once and cut a lot of wood with it. I did one recently, I could only find a "Golf" brand pistons for this saw - they are ok and would recommend using the OEM circlip and NOT the ones supplied as I gather some of our US friends have had long term failures in this area. One word of advice - be sure to find the original route cause of failure - it may be an air leak, carb setting or old fuel. If the route cause isn't resolved, the saw will fry your hard work:thumbdown:

Firstly, if this plug was taken out after a deep cut under load after some use then the colour looks good, perhaps a tad too rich but no problems there. If the saw was left to idle after the cut then the colour may be misleading. I personally always use a tach now - that way the saw will run as the manufacturer specifies - on a saw of this value I would recommend a tach tune and run it on the rich side due to the long felling cuts it is likely to spend it's time doing and the cost of spares if it fries like the one I have got running recently. I can tune by ear but you have to recognise the sound of a fourstroking two stroke to do this and again would use the correct tools on a saw of this value.

It very much depends on where you get them from and what quality. Chinese ones from around £25, the superior Meteor or Episan around £28 and original OEM circa £60. If you have seized the engine ALL the aluminium transfer will need to be removed otherwise you will damage the rings within minutes!

Just had a Jonsered 2065 through which shares many parts - solid machine but it doesn't rev as high as the 357XP and would guess that the life of the 365 would be long and reliable compared to the racier 357XP. Max revs on the 365 are around 13,000 and around 14,700 on the 357 - I haven't got my data to hand but this is about right. THe 365 has IMO a more solid carb to cylinder connection - the rubber boot is a weakness on the 346/357 that the 365 won't have. I would say if you want a reliable long lasting workhorse, the 365 will probably fit the bill, if you want a saw that really rips and is light and agile then he 357 may be a better bet. I haven't had any other experience of this saw other than servicinig and tuning.

Right - rebuilt the clutch cover with new plastic, the build up off chips and oil had broken the leaf spring but have renewed this. Started work on the carb, full strip and ultrasonic clean, noticed the diaphragm spacer was in the wrong position, rebuillt the carb and have some major running issues, have swapped the carb for a known good one and the carb is the problem - poor idle, soaring up to fast revs and then dying completely - I have a theory of what it is but time will tell!

Thats a shame - probably end up stripped for bits - always seems a waste to me. Perhaps someone has buggered the needle seat! Thanks for the update - not the end result I wanted:thumbdown:

Reckon you have sucked up a mouse and it is screaming to be let out:lol: Not had one of these blowers apart but the clicking may be one of two things - something (twig, leaf) rubbing on the impeller or flywheel or may possibly be a sticky starter pawl - those springy things that engage with the starter pully and then fly back under centrifugal force. Just depends what sort of starter mech it has. Other than that, just turn the crank round slowly and see when the saw makes the noise and where from! The screeching noise may be crank bearings - they can make a noise like that, not good! hold the end of the crankshaft and wobble it up and down, there should be almost zero movement - ball races have no movement, needle bearings tend to have a little more. The movement in and out is known as end float and is normal.

Well - what happened to it then, we all like a happy ending:thumbup: Hope it is out there making lots of noise and smoke:lol:

Good pics - The bore/ports look ok from what I can see, the deep impact on the combustion chamber worries me as this will have transferred it's energy directly in to the con rod and big/small end bearings. If you are lucky, all will have survived but reckon the rod may well be bent and is impossible to tell visually. The piston may well have survived, just need to be sure the impact marks havent cracked the crown of the piston - have seen this before with use of piston stops. Personally I would remove, smooth the top and inspect the end bearing for damage and piston for cracks. To remove the lower clam you will need to take the crank shaft out and to do this you normally need to remove both the flywheel, the clutch and any ancillaries like the oil pump etc, all saws are a little different and I haven't had a 390 apart but am suspecting it is similar to the Stihl 180, and Husky 345/ Jonsered 2149....etc that I have had apart. The clam sometimes needs a light tap from underneath with a drift and mallet to shift it. When you come to reassemble (I would certainly make 100% sure the rod is ok) then the seal between the clam and the bottom of the cylinder is critical, a small bead of sealer is required and any technician worth his money will pressure check the engine, I appreciate you probably can't do this but that is your choice - if you were local - I would do it for you. Two strokes use the crankcase to pull fuel in to it and then disperses the fuel in to the combustion area by way of transfer ports, it is critical the only air that gets in to the engine comes in via the carb otherwise you will be dogged with erratic idle, poor pick up and run the risk of seizure - the saw, not you:laugh1: Hope this all helps but guess you are probably understanding why many just send their kit to me and get it back running with the satisfaction I have done the works on their saws! Keep us posted

He is probably concerned, he will correct me if I am wrong, that you will need to clean both mating surfaces of the crank case and add a suitable sealent between the two before joining them. Failure to get a good seal will seize the engine. He will also be concerned that you havent truely found out if the con rod is bent, if this is bent, it will wear the piston and bore very quickly. I thought the saw was a vertically split crankcase but know the 390 is a clam type crank case, just missed it this time. It is difficult to know what damage has been done to the bore without seeing the damage. The test for a bent rod is pretty much valid but would suggest taking out the motor as in Megatrons pic and assembling without rings and seeing if the crank can be turned over without much effort, if you can't turn the crankshaft round by twisting the crank shaft NOT the flywheel or clutch, you probably have a bent rod. The lower clam part of the engine should always be removed so it can be cleaned and sealed properly - any split crankcase should be pressure tested on re-assembly. re-assembly is easier if you have the whole engine out of the saw, the bore should be oiled and the rings eased up the bore - I use a small blunt screwdriver and patience, some use ring compressors - just depends on what you find works - Husky single rings are easier than Stihl two but be patient with it. Sometimes the old sealent looks like an O ring gasket, it isn't and should be cleaned off and fresh sealent used - much easier with the bottom clam removed - these engines are much harder to work on when doing top end work as the whole unit needs removing and generally the flywheel and clutch being removed to get it out! The top part of the crankcase is formed out of the lower part of the cylinder! Appologies for missing the fact it is a clam engine - don't do quite so many of this type.....fortunately! Doing a 023 Stihl soon and will show pictures of it's rebuild!

Anything is worth what another will pay for it - ebay price would be £300 but on there, there is a cost of sale - 10% of sale value and 4% paypal so how about offering £300 - 14% = £258 - that is what I often do for non ebay sales! Strike a deal for cash:thumbup:

Yup - I never lend out saws - it won't come back in better condition and the friend may lose a limb. I would offer to help out - last one ended up with free wood, a fry up and a drive home in a foot of snow - interesting day:thumbup:

If the saw is clean, decent bar and chain, 2 years old, £300 sounds fine but if it is a bit used and battered then £250, make sure the thing idles well and revs out of idle well.