pleasant

Nearly there ADW.........I was going to give you the house point, but not exact enough for one of those!

Nope...it's stock as it left the factory.

Nope

Nope

Interesting one today....don't see many with the cause of this issue. I will let you all have a go at diagnosing what the problem was in due course.........I have friends over this eve so will be dipping in and out when I can. A gold house point for the first correct answer. Here we go: It's a Stihl FS360C Cow-Handled brush cutter/clearing saw. Not overly old, but get a fair bit of use in a farm environment, so not 8 hours a day 5 days a week like the council, but more use than I would give it in my garden. Customer wants us to service it and take a look at an issue it currently has which has got worse. It will start fairly easily, but will not rev up. It feels like it's holding back, with excess smoke via the muffler. Has been used this season- started season fine with no obvious issues. Been used a lot over the last few weeks to do the verges etc around the farm. Slowly started to struggle to rev up. Got out to use again this week and now still starts but revs so low it's unusable. Initial checks show compression is very good, new spark plug, fuel filter and paper air filter all fitted as part of our service, but made no difference. Air filter was fuel mix contaminated, although being a paper element we would have changed that anyway. Over to you guys........

Here you go: Richard1234's comment- done the same as what we do

Don't tend to start very well like that though. 😉

You will get through a dozen of those one after the other once that's happened, and that recoil unit will never be reliable again. It's an inherent fault...so much so that as from this year Stihl had dropped that soft start system on their blowers. They started playing up about 3 years ago...don't know why, but we fitted new springs and shortly after they failed again. We no longer repair the recoil units, we simply buy a complete assembly and bolt it on....cost a bit more to start with but cheaper in the long run OR you could just replace it with the non soft start version. Don't bother fitting a new spring it WILL go again very shortly

Is that some sort of gay icon?

If your preferences are scoring or muffler and plug fouling and excess smoke then yup....fill your boots. Oils particulary modern oils are designed to be diluted at one specific ratio for best protection and performance. That is why it is only the generic supermarket brand oil...the ones who give no clear definite ratio, or who put 'mix it to what your handbook states' are the ones I see on a monday morning. Oil is cheap engines and repairs arent

'Semi-Synthetic 2 stroke engine oil suitable for mixing at 40:1 or 50:1 ratios' ...oh dear....I would avboid that like the plague with that written on it. Tells me they don't know what the correct dilution ratio for the best protection is. Modern oils should have one ONE dilution ratio on the bottle....the CORRECT one for the oil in the bottle...not one open to interpretation.

Tell me where you get that stock of 880's to do up at £50 each will you.

If you're intending to use just the final third of a long bar.....then you may as well remove all the other teeth on your chain as they will obviously be redundant. This will reduce unneccesary drag and load. Hope that help. 😁

Bet he had no regrets or remorse, when he was balls deep.......amazing how these narcissistic idiots that have had smoke blown up their backsides by tv luvvies suddenly find regret and remorse after being found out.

Mower blades shouldn't be sharp,,,they should be dressed and ground at a 30 degree angle, but not sharp, as this will dull very quickly. A clean, but not sharp edge particularly on mower blades will keep its edge longer. I often have to explain this to my customers who complain the blade we have sharpened for them is not sharp.....they expect to cut paper with it! Even brand new blades are not what you would call sharp....even had people hand back a new blade and say 'this ones not been made right- can I have a sharp one' On a mower it is the speed of the blade that does the cutting not the sharpness. At its tip it will be rotating at near 200mph.....you could bolt a house brick to the end and it would still do a reasonable job!

Not this then? Maybe a bit late, but fits the description

Yes spud. We started taking them in years ago as we were getting so many coming in it seemed silly to turn away custom. In the long run it cost us money and some of our reputation for good, reliable workmanship. Usually took three or four attempts to get them right (well, as right as they would ever be) we couldn't realistically charge how long it took us for each one, so got paid just the once for less than we could normally charge.then ended up having another go three times following after they came back with the same issues...all at no charge as the customer quite rightly said it was the same problem it was in with only a few weeks before. You then had these customers moaning to their circle that we can't fix a simple homebase chainsaw so 'don't trust them with your stihl' was what was being bandied about. In the end i took a blanket decision to take nothing on from these retailers or online sellers that were generic budget stuff with zero spares availability or proper manufacturer support. Trying to explain to a customer you simply cannot economically improve on design, tolerances and quality of these things if it's not there to begin with is impossible...they think you are being awkward ir even 'snobby' had someone say 'so it's not good enough for you to work on then......not everyone can afford what you want to sell!' Sometimes it IS cheaper to say no to begin with

You will be lucky if you ever get it to run 'right' they never did from new. Always used to see a load of those come in on a Monday after being purchased from homebase on the Saturday. Sorry to say.....they're landfill.

Not always the case...certainly not in todays range- as you can see: MS 251 Petrol Chainsaw - Top range domestic saw, the optimum choice for property maintenance WWW.STIHL.CO.UK Perfect for harvesting firewood in the forest ✓ Or check out the MS 251 C-BE model with Quick Chain Tensioning and...

Stihl catalogues past and present categorise their saw range from home owner, to landscaper/farmer, through to forestry use (full pro) Just goodle and you will find copies of the relevant catalogues. Out of those list of models in your last sentence, they are all pro users saws except for the 392, which is a landscaper/farmer saw.....basically a beefed up and more powerful homeowner saw. Plastic carriage and body with a cheap to make clamshell engine. Domestic saw. Occasional use in a homeowner environment. Lighter use. Cutting logs for a wood burner, bit of limbing and pruning. Felling up to say 14cm dia on occasions. Lanndscaper/farmer saw. Designed for more use generally heavier and to be use part of someones job rather than full time. Such as a gardener....or a farmer Pro saws. For full time money earning use, where a chainsaw constitutes pretty much the sole purpose of the occupation. From toppimg/pruning,right up to heavy logging/processing requirements

Where schofields concerned is 'back garden' a euphemism?

Load a pickup truck with 5 tonnes of stuff instead of a tonne and you will get a similar result. Will very slowly shift the load from A to B a few times, but will prematurely wear out the clutch, bearings, mounts, gearbox and engine as well as the chassis. And should you eventually go back to just shifting a tonne, the truck will be loose, rattly and will feel much older than its years.

Absolutely spot on for a mulching blade (or shredcut blades as Stihl refer to them) Only models where they recommend the shredcut blades can be fitted are: FS361, FS411, FS461, FS491 (270mm) and FS561 (320mm) You fit it to any other models in the range, then you invalidate warranty and can seriously damage the drivetrain as a result....hence why they won't warranty it.

Well done. That is very much a mate rate for that job 👍

The way i read the op's question it appears he wants to turn it into some sort of lawn. I dont see anywhere in his requirements that he wants a flower meadow, or hay...he wants to cut and collect the grass