winter time and 2cycle chainsaw

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

I've an old STHIL MS 20T and just a week ago it started acting funny. It would stall out. Idle funny etc. I'm guessing g its the winter air mixture .... but its never done this before. I've adjusted the idle and LA till no end and I can't get it to idle without the chain spinning. The brake works but that balance is one of those unspoken general rules of thumb and that's how I'd like it to run...

Any ideas?

TIA

 

[jlee]

Have you replaced the spark plug yet? If not, I'd try that first.

 

[skyking]

be sure to bottom out the mixture screw, count the turns in till it bottoms on the seat. If you have a fine piece of debris in there, this will often get rid of it.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

When i was fooling with it the first time, I did check the spark plug and it didn't look carboned up. Made sure the plug was back on tight.

I'm goin to give the LA screw adjustment a try. I remember it seeming to sound like it was idling like normal when i was playing with the adjustment....

Thanks people 🙂

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Ah well, looks like I get to tear into the entire saw over the next couple of weeks. I placed the saw in a precarious spot and as my journeyman was taking off after work, he veered towards the entrance/exit gate, almost completely running my saw over, lol.

 

[natto fire]

Bummer about the saw, how bad is it? I really like the T series saws, amazing power for their size. I recently bucked some 8-10" diameter locust with a friend's 201 T and it did a pretty decent job, really shined on thinning out a hemlock stand that took 12+ hrs of cutting.

As far as adjusting the carbs, I usually make the adjustment by ear with the chain brake on, to load the engine a bit. After I think I have it in the right place, I release the brake, check for movement, run it up to full throttle, let it idle back down then check for movement again. Had an 034 that would need carb adjustments constantly, finally ended up rebuilding the carb, and then the whole motor. As far as I know, the saw is still kicking, but it just seems like the carbs do not age well, especially in dry climates.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Oddly the air filter broke in a tiny spot on the upper left hand corner; right where there is a little sorta nub. Also, the handle doesn't line up with the bar. It's off-center. I think it may just be the grommets.

I did some tearing into. Took the entire handle assembly off, carb... down to the rubber intake manifold. The pull start got alot of tiny gravel stones lodged inside of it; took that off. Pulled out the fuel line and inspected the gas-line filter. There is a ?overflow? line that comes from, I'm assuming, the bottom of the crankshaft area, and goes back into the carb. I'm not sure if that is clogged or not. I can't trace it so I am going to have the shop look into it. I plan on either rebuilding the carb or just cleaning out the screens inside the carb. ... It's my every-day saw

We are using a 201 also. I let my journeyman "have" it on my crew. He was using a Husky 338 trim saw. They might be good to some people but the one we had was horrible. You cannot get things done fast with those saws. Even with those 201s, which are nice, they don't have the RPM that makes things get done fast.

12+ hrs to trim out a tree? A Hemlock stand?

 

[natto fire]

Forget how many hemlock trees were in the stand, but it was mostly cutting off punjis and and lower dead branches to make the forest easily traverseable. The hemlocks were planted, so they were in a nice row, but they get messy like juniper on the lower branches (or most evergreen species for that matter). The Locust log was already down (used the 361 to get 10 or so trees for firewood) which I just bucked a bit to test how well the 201 would do on it.

It sounds like you have a plan, which is a good idea when stuff comes apart.

I have never really tried out any of Husqvarna's higher end stuff, but I learned with Stihl and now have done so much work on them, that I can't imagine even trying them out, then again, I have not bought my own saw before. I was provided one when I worked for the NCC, and all of my friends that live in the woods around here have their own saws. I move so much that it is not really practical for me to own one at this point, but at least all the experience with them will help me pick out a good one when it is time.