pleasant

Sometimes the correct, recommended way to advise someone can be 'mindlessly presciptive' particularly if you have already formed your own opinion. You misread what I said as well, which is, Stihl produce a particularly lighter chain oil specifically for their hand held mini pruner, which is significantly different to their regular offering and different to the Makita one you have compared it to. Multioil Bio | STIHL WWW.STIHL.CO.UK Multioil Bio: For the GTA 26 garden pruner

You can also use a funnel with a fine gauze filter specifically for fuel filtering use even before the fuel has entered the tank....however, dont try and use the same funnel to add engine oil to your 4 stroke.....you will be waiting all afternoon for it to filter through. 😄

I am surprised a new mini saw doesnt come with a small bottle of their recommended chain oil to get you started. The cordless mini stihl saw comes with one, which is available to purchase either in the small size bottle supplied with the saw or a larger one. The stihl saw hasnt got an auto oiler, so when applied you are likely to use slightly more than if it were oiling itself. It is a thinner grade than the regular chain oil, but still retains the correct amount of 'stickiness' to prevent it simply being thrown off the chain the minute you start it. Use the correct stuff. Will save on premature wear on chains, bars, sprockets etc. Oil is cheap, components arent. As someone has said.....certainly dont use used engine oil...lost count how many chewed up oil pump drives ive had to replace! Remember, the correct grade is also designed to not only lubricate but also cool moving components. We had a guy bring a saw into us with a melted oil tank housing and seized sprocket tip on the bar and wanted it sorted under warranty (it was a plastic bodied saw) we couldnt work out how all this happened until we drained out what was left in the oil tank to inspect it, and the oil that came out was bright red. Turns chap though oil was oil, and used his 2 stroke oil as chain oil. Didnt cool enough, overheated the bar and chain....heat transmitted to chainsaw body and melted it.

Oregon chains are sold to dealers on 100ft rolls (generally, as it's cheaper to buy a roll, than pre-cut lengths) and are cut to length on site for pre-packed sale or made up to order. When a customer blames a chain for blunting quicker than expected, and is therefore 'faulty', I usually point out that their 3ft length of chain we used to make up their loop, came from a random section of 100ft roll. If the chain was 'faulty' then the remaining 97ft of chain either side of where their chain was cut from would also be 'faulty' unless of course, by sheer coincidence and really bad luck, that 3ft of chain was the ONLY bit that we happened to make their chain out of was the ONLY faulty bit of that 100ft of chain. Normally puts things into perspective and absolves the chain

I agree repairers try and push warranty claims through for carbs, although unless it is for a manufacturing fault within the carb, then these claims are never paid by the manufacturer. As you know a carb only becomes 'faulty' due to outside influences....fuel, ingress etc etc. All of which are not manufacturing faults. If it has been diagnosed it is a carb that is required then we always fit new...purely for economical reasons for the customer. To remove a carb, strip it, ultrasonically clean it, rebuild it with new diaphragms and gaskets is more expensive in terms of labour...and the cost of the carb kit than it would be to simply fit a new carb and its guaranteed to work with no fettling and the guarantee of a new part to the customer. Its fine rebuilding carbs if your time is free on your own machine or its your hobby, but commercially with hourly rates as they are rebuilding carbs costs more than new

I would say the same. Just stick a carb on

As a rough guide, ideal bar length is a third of the engines cc's (approx) So 35cc. 12" bar 50cc. 16" Etc That was what stihl training told us a good few years ago now.

I ported a stihl hand held a couple of years ago for a good friend of mine......made it so powerful it made his wrist ache trying to keep it pointing towards the ground. Well...that was his excuse he told me for his wrist ache. 😔

Have you established the reason for the scoring before spending time cleaning up your cylinder...or even forking out for a new piston and cylinder....? You dont want to find out you have duff crank seals for example after all your work

Can be if used incorrectly. Ok, they arent for large areas, but tidying up around an average sized garden they are fine. Worst thing you can do is use them to vacuum debris that is anything but dry. No good trying to suck up wet leaves....if they stick to your shoes or driveway they they will stick to the insides of the vac tubes. Also the extra water content will effectively turn the 'shredding' feature of the machine into a juicer. Which again, will cause clogging. The wet material will then dry rock hard (a combination of chopped leaves and dirt dries surprisingly hard) around the impellor and will then compromise blowing and vacuum performance until you chip it all away. Added that to the fact the wet material if it makes its way into the collection bag then wets the bag and then drips everywhere, and the material if left in the bag rots it...and those bags arent cheap. A few days of no rain and some wind and you see leaves being blown around on a lawn tells you they are dry enough to collect

Ive seen better tbh. Deffo replace the piston. The cylinder isnt great, but thats just my opinion as im not in the habit of reusing scored barrels....being a main dealer that is a no no, but there are some on here who would maybe give you a better opinion. Its a lot of work to go to, to then find out once its all together you still have poor compression after and back to square one. But, hey its your free time and your arent relying on it to earn money, so maybe worth a try with a clean up and new piston and rings. Remember though you cant buy a cylinder on its own, so if you try a piston and rings, then have to buy a new cylinder, you will be paying for another piston and rings you wont need.

If you are buying anew stihl hand held its worth noting they have done away with the double spring ergo soft start recoil now, which was very unreliable and failed on a regular basis. This was a feature on the bg86 and sh86 models. The model numbers are still the same but the latest stock is coming through with the better, non soft start recoil. The rrp is a bit cheaper, but some dealers are still selling at the dearer soft start model price.....plus there is a lot of old stock out there so if you dont want one with a soft start (trust me you dont) then check before you part with your cash

They are handy. That saker one is a generic chinese one with saker labels. Some idiot advertises same think on one of the shopping channels. Yes, they do have a place. We have been selling the stihl one since it first came out..been very popular. However being light, pretty much zero noise and can easily be picked up and used, they do make people safety complacent and people forget its still a chain whizzing round as you wield it all over the place. Unlike a regular chainsaw people see no reason to adopt much if any ppe and what it is designed for you are always going to be in closer proximity to it than a regular ground saw. Because people use them on whippy bits (even shown in adverts) they hold the 'twig' in one hand and the tool in the other....generally far to close to each other. No mention in the blurb for the domestic consumer (their main market) that the machine is only as good as the sharpness of the chain. Joe public think the chains go on forever being sharp. Plus there no auto oiler so oiling tends to be forgotten or deliberately avoided

So he's dressed in drag and driving down to the deep south?

As an aside, but tenuously similar. We often have pedestrian mowers in, that a customer doesn't want to pay for a full blown service, but ideally just wants the blade removed, sharpened, balanced and re-fitted. We are happy to do this, but naturally on a petrol mower it requires either tipping on it's back or at least on it's side to get at the blade. To avoid oil migration either into the exhaust or worse, the air filter and carb, we vacuum remove the old oil prior to starting work and then re-fill it with new oil (normally between 500ml-600ml) at a cost of around £8.00 plus the charge to do the blade. You will be surprised how many people don't understand we need to remove the oil in the first place, and more astoundingly those that think we should put their old cruddy oil back so there's no oil charge!!!

Terrible way of operating. Any idiot can just keep fitting parts until it eventually cures a problem via a process of elimination. What they are saying is exactly that......and you are then paying for parts and work that wasn't necessary. And they are just saying 'tough' You take it to an 'expert' to avoid such instances.....otherwise you may as well adopt their attitude and keep fitting parts until it cures the issue, but without a labour charge if you do it yourself.

I note it states in the original post they have sold 50k of these chains. Having used several on demo, that 50k must have been supplied to a single user with an ms180 who just wanted to do a bit of pruning on a saturday morning.

'Trade counter gimps' You have a way with words dont you? And if only you knew. My post wasnt just for your benefit but for anyone else considering overriding legal safety operational devices which (whether you like it or not) renders the machine unsafe to use and invalidates any liability insurance to the operative and the public. Those are the facts....irrelevant as to whether in your opinion it may well be it makes the machine safer to use. In a hSe court your opinion would be irrelevant. I have seen it with my own eyes, young employees being asked or even told to use chainsaw with inoperative chainbrakes and the opc safety cut out levers on mowers tied up so the engine stays running when you empty the grassbox because the engine is a pig to restart. I have acted as an expert witness in both instances. My advice was to help other consider the consequences of what you were suggesting...not yourself, who would appears to know best. Hope that clarifies things for you

Efficiency aside, i just hope you have a lot of cash put away for when your insurance refuses to pay out....if another operator is involved and you have an HSE court case to answer...or you have to support yourself should it happen to you with no means of income due to injury. Not what you want to hear, but thats the reality of what is being suggested here.

Best part of watchIng barry sheene et al at Brands Hatch in the 70's was the smell after they all accelerated away from the start. Lovely castrol R

If you need a sealant thats oil and fuel resistant, then this is what we have used for the last ten years or so. TB1215 - ThreeBond THREEBOND-EUROPE.COM

Apologies.....HP Ultra.

Personally at home I use the Super HP.....this is fully synthetic as apposed to the basic green which is a semi synthetic. The HP is supposed to offer higher protection at the more extreme end of usage....plus it has an inhibitor added to prevent the quick deterioration of the crap unleaded fuel we now have. Like i say, i use it personally at home as opposed to the standard green Stihl oil because it doesnt cost me a lot, and a litre of it for use in my garden will last me a couple of years.

Vehicle needs to have a current V5 and be 'road worthy' ie can legally be driven on the road. If the vehicle it is on, would fail an mot (whether legally it needs one or not) you cannot transfer the number. Once the 'donor' vehicle can legally be used on the road, then you can transfer the number to another vehicle or on to a retention document for future allocation or sale. There have been some very valuable numbers been lost due to the vehicle they are on being beyond an economical repair even taking into account the value of the plate. Additionally, certain categories of vehicle you cannot transfer plates across to. For example agricultural vehicles with decent plates may not automatically be transferred on to a car

Dirko is good stuff...but a pig to get off your fingers afterwards.....and everything elso on the engine you touch!