Chainsaw maintenance. A pain sometimes.

ML's chainsaw was not throwing bar oil the last time we tried to use it. There are two liquid resevoirs on a chainsaw. One is for 2 cycle fuel/oil mix and the other is for bar oil. The bar oil allows the chain to run at the required high speeds.  Without it friction quickly causes damaging heat build up.  

Today ML and our daughter went Christmas shopping. I figured it was a good day to do the maintenance. I assumed ML's bar oil inlet filter was clogged. I pulled the oil filter through the tank using needlenose pliers. Simple huh? Except the hose was too short to install the new filter???? Turns out you have to replace the filter from the bottom side.

I needed acess to this screw - hidden by the handle.



That meant removing the handle. What a pain. Seems silly to hide the screw needed for a common maintenance chore.



Removing the screw gave me access to the oil pump and the feed line from the oil resevoir which is what I needed.



I re-used the line and added a new filter.



While apart I replaced the spark plug.



The fuel filter was much easier. Fish it out with a piece of wire and put on the new one. The fuel line was long enough. What a concept



Then I put it all back together.


Took me much longer than I planned or care to admit.
Thank God for YouTube videos.

I was cold at that point and came into the house to clean up. I will test it later.

I heard there's a safety switch somewhere to prevent it from starting so if it doesn't start verify that switch. Dad took his to the shop because it wouldn't start...turns out it was a safety switch engaged. *face palm*

Sounds pretty complicated. Doing maintenance on my old McCullough saw many years ago was hard work but simple.

I only do minor maintenance on mine; Things easily accessed like chain sharpening, flipping the bar, greasing the sprocket, changing the sparkplug and adjusting the air/fuel mix. The dealer gets the rest of the work since I just don't have the time, and he knows what he's doing. It's cheap enough and he's only 15 minutes away.

When you stated that the bar wasn't getting oil the first thing I would have checked is that there are no chips holding the bar away from it's "bed" on the saw that it must make contact with to force the oil into the bar. The 2nd thing I would have checked is the tiny hole in the bar itself. It plugs pretty easily. If those weren't the problem I'd have brought it back to the mothership.

gregcss, there is an on/off switch and a safety bar as a safety for kickback. The on/off switch is placed so that it can be swiped off in a heartbeat in case of accident. It's easy to accidentally swipe off too. I've never seen an on/off switch placed in an inconvenient location. Maybe 80 years ago, but not today.

I heard there's a safety switch somewhere to prevent it from starting so if it doesn't start verify that switch. Dad took his to the shop because it wouldn't start...turns out it was a safety switch engaged. *face palm*

Face Palm indeed.

I have another thread on firewood cutting on DFS. I mention, after a cleaning and refueling, not being able to cut well. I had mounted the chain on the bar backwards. As I posted at the time I was not embarrassed to have done this. But I was mortified at how long it took me to figure out the problem

Sounds pretty complicated.  Doing maintenance on my old McCullough saw many years ago was hard work but simple.

John,
Not really complicated as much as tedious. The disassembly was annoying but not hard. I am really glad we now have the internet to look things up.

I only do minor maintenance on mine; Things easily accessed like chain sharpening, flipping the bar, greasing the sprocket, changing the sparkplug and adjusting the air/fuel mix. The dealer gets the rest of the work since I just don't have the time, and he knows what he's doing. It's cheap enough and he's only 15 minutes away.

When you stated that the bar wasn't getting oil the first thing I would have checked is that there are no chips holding the bar away from it's "bed" on the saw that it must make contact with to force the oil into the bar. The 2nd thing I would have checked is the tiny hole in the bar itself. It plugs pretty easily. If those weren't the problem I'd have brought it back to the mothership.

gregcss, there is an on/off switch and a safety bar as a safety for kickback. The on/off switch is placed so that it can be swiped off in a heartbeat in case of accident. It's easy to accidentally swipe off too. I've never seen an on/off switch placed in an inconvenient location. Maybe 80 years ago, but not today.

Brian,
I checked those promptly. Then I took off the chain and bar. Ran the saw. No oil coming out of the port that mates up with the hole on the bar you mentioned. At that point it was a supply issue. The Filter being the most likly culprit. Only thing remaining is the oil pump. If I had known how much I was going to take apart the saw I would have ordered a pump to replace proactively. 20/20 hindsight.

Newer saws have two safeties built in.
The handguard as you mention. I use this as an on/off when passing the saw to ML or walking while the engine is running. A flick of the wrist to push it forward to engage. Then use my free hand to pull it back so the chain can run. Besides making us safer in the woods it also is a physical test of the safety system.

The second safety is an inertia brake built into the handguard braking system. It works like a seat belt. A little motion is fine. But a fast jerk as in a kickback situation and it gets activated. This happens if somehow the handguard fails to strike your wrist to activate.

When we first started "logging" we used a "home owner" level saw purchased at Walmart.  It had NO chain brake!!! At that time the internet was becoming popular. Read about "professional" saws on an arborist forum. They had the handguard and inertia brakes. Seemed silly to me that the pros had safer saws. They know what they are doing. A green user like me was more likely to need these safety features than the seasoned pros. Promptly went out and purchased our first Stihl.

Haven't looked back.

Yup, I use nothing but pro saws. I started with Stihl and since have moved to Husqvarna. It's all about dealerships and maintenance. But I still have my first Stihl that I bought in the late '70s with no safeties of any sort. That first chainsaw cut down 10s of thousands of bf of pine the first year we were up here. Last time I tried it it ran. But the only time I run it is if I get my other 2 saws pinch stuck. It happened more often years ago, much less now. I'm either smarter, stronger, or just plain lucky. The latter is most likely . It also helps to have horsepower which pro saws can have. I can't tell you how many times the big saw just powered it's way through a pinch cut that would have stopped the lighter saw. It's not much bigger or heavier, but it's a >5HP saw. It's just amazing how fast that will cut through a big hardwood log. OK, plus it's missing a piston ring (by build design) for much higher revs. BTW, I bought the big saw for making boards with an Alaskan Mill. It'll handle a 32" (36? Anyway, it's a honking long bar!) bar and chain. But for working in the woods the bar is much shorter. I didn't have it for long when the dealer asked me about my shins. Due to the extreme speed of the chain, if it just touches a small loose piece of the tree it'll come back and the shins are what stops it. The first and only time it happened I thought I broke my leg from the amount of pain. But I'll never part with that saw, it just works too fantastically in the woodyard (fast) but not so great, due to the weight, for limbing. I don't think Husky makes that model anymore.

When I first moved here a neighbor who worked in the woods for a living suggested that the homeowner saws were good as a 2nd saw if ones first saw never broke down. I always got a kick out of that joke and I've used it on people who never got it.

I admit to admiring how you folks live the dream.  Meanwhile, I'm stuck here in my den, watching the quiet, lovely snowfall, and I have to trudge all the way over to the sideboard to pick up the remote and turn on the gas fireplace.  


Now you know why John Denver never sang a song titled Thank God I'm a City Boy.

I admit to admiring how you folks live the dream.  Meanwhile, I'm stuck here in my den, watching the quiet, lovely snowfall, and I have to trudge all the way over to the sideboard to pick up the remote and turn on the gas fireplace.  


Now you know why John Denver never sang a song titled Thank God I'm a City Boy.

A man after my own heart!