Quote:
Originally Posted by JJ_BPK
Thanks,, Here in the Conch Republic, we use chain saws infrequently. Palms de-foliate naturally. The hardwoods like Buttonwood don't get real good feed, so they are very slow growers. The Melaleuca, Sea Grape, Brazilian Pepper,and other soft woods are usually kept low or eliminated, as they are fodder for wind storms.
But we do need them. Think Hurricanes,, lots of things fall down in the streets,, and your yard.. No joke, after Georges in 98', the wood we cut-corded in my neighborhood could have kept Minnesota warm for a month,, well maybe Miami.. It was a lot,, took us a couple days.
I've have an old McCulloch, yellow pro series, 16"?? bar, forgot the model. I was told to be careful to buy the older American built,, and that was 10-14 yrs ago.
It has done yeoman's work,, but she didn't crank last fall, when I wanted to trim my Mahogany. Had to barrow the neighbors..
This note is very timely.. Thanks..
If you don't mind, I would like to send it to my local friends.. it's that time of the year when we start getting ready for storm season,, at least the ones who do what should be done..  |
JJ_BPK before you take your McCulloch in I'd like to make a suggestion if I may. I worked at an Ace Hardware in their small engine repair shop for a couple of years in high school, we serviced/repaired McCulloch, Echo, and Homelite 2 cycle equipment (as well as all 4 cycle stuff) so I'm pretty familiar with repairing them. Most small engines are very simple and are usually very easy to get back into running condition when they stop with a little work (obviously this in not the case with some catastrophic damage but I'll get into that later if need be). If you haven't done so the first 3 things I would do would be to replace the spark plug, air filter, and internal fuel filter. The spark plug and air filter are very simple and should be self explanatory, to change the fuel filter you'll need a piece of wire that you can bend a hook in, put it into the tank and pull the filter out. That will solve probably 2/3s of most people’s problems, if that doesn't work I'd check to make sure you're getting spark. Easiest way to do this if you don't know is to take the plug out, put a screw driver in the plug socket and touch it to the block, (don't put the screw driver into the spark plug hole, could do bad things, and don't hold onto the screw driver when you pull the rope or you'll get a little shock) pull the rope and see if you have a spark (if you’re a gear head they make a little tool for this but I have no idea what they cost now probably more than getting the saw serviced), if you get a spark, then the most likely issue will be the carb. A carb rebuild kit is very easy to install, I would start by just installing the 2 rubber gaskets (pay attention when you take them out and put the new ones in the same way as the old ones came out, that will likely get you back up and running, if not there is a needle with a small/thick o-ring type gasket in the kit that goes below the needle, that will need to be swapped out, the easiest way to get it out is to use compressed air, if you need/desire to go that far I can pull a carb and take some pictures of where to put the air nozzle to get that little gasket to pop out. If/when you get that out you need to make sure the new gaskets flat side is facing out with the round side with the small seam faces away from the needle. Now if you put the do all of the above and it’s still not running it’s possible you have bigger issues, next most common are the magneto going bad but you’ll know that when you do the spark test, after that you’re probably talking major internal damage, though if you mix your gas properly that’s probably not the case.
Let me know if you need/want the pictures.
When I was working at Ace we did what we called check ups which cost about 50 bucks, which was basically just putting a new air/fuel filter, new plug, fresh gas in and sharpening the chain, usually took less than an hour and got more than 2/3s of saws back up and running.