Stihl Chainsaw -- Its ALIVE!!

[slag]

Year or so ago my FiL gave me an old Stihl 041 AV saw. It had been sitting on a shelf in his shed since my wife was a little girl. He thinks it was throwing the chain, but couldn't remember, and just stopped using it.

Well, I got home with it, cleaned it up with the purple cleaner and a toothbrush, and hosed it out completely. Drained the varnish/gas out and flushed it really well with carb cleaner until the tank was spotless.

Couldn't get a spark though, so I put all the parts in a box and set it aside.

Fast forward to this weekend when I decided to take another look at it. It is an old points setup, and after adjusting the coil, cleaning and adjusting the points, and heat shrink tubing a wire that the insulation was coming off of, I got it to give a nice solid spark.

After 30 minutes or so of tuning it, I got it to start reliably and run pretty well. I went to my local small engine dealer and picked up an 18 inch chain for the bar as the old chain was rusted in several links and as I found out, was the wrong pitch for the saw--the reason it kept throwing the chain!!

Well, she runs good now, I can't wait to try it on a tree. I'm also going to order a 24 or 25 inch bar and chain since this old girl can handle it and make it my main saw. I have an italian made olympyk I use for trimming as it is great for one handed operation.

Small video I made while I was tuning it. After running a tank or two of fuel through it, I'll revisit the idle and make sure everything is good to go.

http://youtu.be/2CBRCixB7cY

 

[exar333]

:thumbsup:

 

[skyking]

I have an 041 we purchased new in 1980 for a firewood cutting venture. It refuses to die!
EDIT: It appears to be the same approximate model range I have.

 

[Gillbot]

I love chainsaw tales!

 

[CraigRT]

Very cool.
Stihl stuff is awesome. My dad has 2 pieces of Stihl equipment and they are top notch.

 

[jlee]

I love chainsaw tales!

Heh I thought you were going to link to this thread

 

[Gillbot]

Heh I thought you were going to link to this thread

Meh, I don't spend enough time browsing. They are slave drivers here, all work and no play. :whiste:

 

[speedy2]

I need a saw bad. I live on 7 acres and I have tons of trees I'd like to cut. I refuse to get a cheapo version no matter how tempting the prices are. wish I could find a good brand like that and fix it up. Will probably outlast a cheapo one that's built today.

 

[ballmode]

So I clicked on your youtube link and it says only 34 views, before clicking into this thread there were 190 views. Seems like alot of people just read your post and never cared to watch the vid.

tsk tsk.

 

[slag]

To be fair, the video sucks.

Made with an EVO and the reverb off the bed of the truck was horrible so I don't really care. I just threw it in there to do it.

 

[RearAdmiral]

Cutting stuff down is awesome!

 

[jaha2000]

Gotta love the smell of burning 2 stroke! I sold all my 2 stoke bikes but still use the 10 bucks a quart premix cause it smells so much better!

 

[manimal]

Change the topic to Sthil alive!!

 

[slag]

So I put the saw away after this last post and decided I wanted to get it professionally fixed and working properly. I took it in and they said it was dead.. very little compression, pieces falling off, not worth anything but maybe $40 in parts. I took it home, ordered a new piston and rings, gaskets, bottle hone, carb kit, etc.. I gave it to my 13 yr old as a project. He stripped it down, I showed him how to take the cylinder off, how to use a hone, how to put the rings on the piston correctly and what the arrow on the piston dome meant (which direction to face it). I also showed him how to set the points gap and how to retard and advance the timing. We got it together and fired it up. It's never ran so good. It needs to be tuned a bit still, but he's eager to cut down a tree with it. It's very rewarding to be able to teach your kids how to work on small engines and he gobbles it up. He can fix just about anything now, lawn mowers, snow blowers, weed eaters, leaf blowers, etc. He's been buying broken stuff on craigslist, fixing it, and flipping it for profit this summer. He'll be 14 in January.

 

[bamx2]

Good work . I have one of that vintage . Are the newer models still made in Germany ?

 

[boomerang]

Good work . I have one of that vintage . Are the newer models still made in Germany ?

They're made right here in Virginia.

I've got a Stihl chainsaw, blower and trimmer. They pretty much refuse to die. The chainsaw and trimmer I bought new in '87. But I have to say that they don't get much use. The chainsaw gets used when I have a tree or limb down in the yard. I have the lawn set up to basically not need any trimming so the trimmer rarely gets used. The blower I got three or four years ago. It gets used the most.

The saw leaked bar oil since I purchased it. I eventually bought a case for it to contain the leaking oil. This spring I declared war on it and in the process of trying to detect the source of the leak, by process of elimination ended up having to split the crankcase halves to replace the gasket. I couldn't actually tell where the leak was from but that was the last thing left. No leaks now.

Bought an Exmark zero turn mower with a 50" cut late last fall. Man, that thing is absolutely awesome.