Ax-man
Addicted to ArboristSite
View attachment 657026 View attachment 657027 View attachment 657029 View attachment 657030 View attachment 657031 View attachment 657032 View attachment 657033
Hello all, it has been awhile for me since I have contributed to the chainsaw threads . I thought I would share some info on an 088 I was asked to work on because 088's don't get much attention here unless your a logger, serious tree service owner, or do serious milling. I put some pics in the thread for added interest as this model is a little more complicated to me to work on verses other big Stihl's I have worked on. This isn't my saw although I do own an 088 but have never had to work on it except change air filter, sprockets , bar and chain so my experience under the outside covers was very limited when it came to an 88 and was a little reluctant to work on it for fear of messing it up but decided to try .
Here comes the story , bear with me.
This was my second encounter with this saw for the same owner and it has had a hard life, run hard and put up wet. The first time I worked on the saw was for an oiler not working. The guys running the saw would dump bar oil on the chain and it also was hard to start and the owner asked me to just look at it and see what it needed. A bad decomp valve was the culprit for not starting good, the clutch side was an abortion , a very badly worn sprocket and messed up oiler gears. The owner got new parts except for the plastic oiler gear under the clutch which I needed instead of just that spring arm that turns the gear via the notch in the clutch sprocket. I was able to get the new and used parts to work and get the saw starting better and the oiler working and the owner was very happy.
Now the saw is back on my bench for second time only this time we have a no start problem unless you primed it heavy choked it and then it would start, lean out and die. I thought it would be a simple carb cleaning easy fix to get the saw running . The logical assumption was it wasn't getting fuel but this wasn't the case that darn used plastic oiler gear under the clutch came back to haunt me. That gear in the first picture wasn't as rough looking when I put it back together the first time but degraded to the point it tore the crank seal apart and caused the saw not to be able to create vacuum to pull fuel out of the carb hence no starting without a prime.
I am not putting that saw back together without a new gear like I wanted in the first place . It looks like it got hot at some point and just kept digging into the crank seal . If anyone has a different theory I would appreciate it because I am sure I didn't put any parts back together wrong the first time unless they were wrong to start with. After removing that gear to look at the seal it was sitting in it's housing(?) or seat a little crooked or raised on one side and not sitting level . The saw is old and I can't help but think that maybe with the age of the saw it got tired and the saws compression pushed it out just enough to get chewed up by that oiler gear.
That is the jist of my saw problems and if anyone has other thoughts feel free to speak up.
There is more to this story so if your not bored by reading this long post, keep reading. I'll try to keep it brief. I am only putting this in here in case some one needs to get a peak inside an 88. They are just different to work on . This is by no means a 088 fix it tutorial
First is the carb . I had that big Tilly carb with it's limiter caps out twice to give it a good cleaning and inspection. I was sure surprised to see limiter caps on this old of a saw. The first time I had to really study it to see how to remove the carb. It is a little tricky to remove it from the air box. Stihl over engineered this set-up to me but who am I to say what is good and what is not a good idea. The saw has two throttle linkages , one coming from the trigger , the other from the choke lever up to the throttle plate in the carb and a third lever for the choke plate . The handle cover comes off first to expose the trigger to remove the first linkage, next the screw on the bottom right in the pic comes out to remove the keeper holding the choke lever in place. Then the choke lever has to come up and out of it's retainer, slide it to the left to slide off the choke rod and the second throttle rod lever off the choke lever. Also undo fuel line, pulse line and that air box plug that goes over idle and Hand L screws. Clear as mud , the pics kind of show what I am talking about if you look at them close. I am probably not explaining this all that good but it isn't that hard as long as you study things and not get crazy by forcing pieces apart or forcing them back together. When putting all this back together you do things in reverse but have to play with that ignition ground strap that kills the spark making sure it is in it's proper place on the choke lever . Practice makes perfect and the second time was much easier.
OK , one more item, the exhaust, again I never ran into a set-up like this one . The muffler is held in place with two c clips that go onto the muffler itself and the cylinder block and held in place with that heavy wire retainer along with two bolts at the front of muffler that screw into the crankcase . Again the pics show what I am talking about.
I am not crazy about this feature either. The only reason I removed the muffler was to look at the piston to see if had a bad ring or something out of the ordinary as to why the saw wouldn't start. I also don't like this arrangement because I am at a loss as to how to get a good seal around the exhaust port to do a pressure vac test . Blocking the carb is easy enough to do but sealing the exhaust port is not so easy. Any ideas would be helpful. It is not like doing most saws by unbolting the muffler ,slide a rubber gasket between the exhaust port and muffler and retighten the muffler to seal the exhaust port. I can't find any kind of rubber gasket material that is thin enough to allow those c clips to be put back in place to seal the exhaust port . I would like to do some kind pressure vac test when the new crank seal goes in but it looks like I'll have to wing it on this one. Any help with this would be useful.
Ok , end of story . I hope this has been some what helpful if you ever need to work on an 88 because I am leaving a lot out and hasn't been too boring.
Edit, I did it again by playing around with the edit function and got the pics in the wrong order they should be at the end of the post verses the beginning . I am going to leave it as is . Sorry
View attachment 657026 View attachment 657026 View attachment 657027
Hello all, it has been awhile for me since I have contributed to the chainsaw threads . I thought I would share some info on an 088 I was asked to work on because 088's don't get much attention here unless your a logger, serious tree service owner, or do serious milling. I put some pics in the thread for added interest as this model is a little more complicated to me to work on verses other big Stihl's I have worked on. This isn't my saw although I do own an 088 but have never had to work on it except change air filter, sprockets , bar and chain so my experience under the outside covers was very limited when it came to an 88 and was a little reluctant to work on it for fear of messing it up but decided to try .
Here comes the story , bear with me.
This was my second encounter with this saw for the same owner and it has had a hard life, run hard and put up wet. The first time I worked on the saw was for an oiler not working. The guys running the saw would dump bar oil on the chain and it also was hard to start and the owner asked me to just look at it and see what it needed. A bad decomp valve was the culprit for not starting good, the clutch side was an abortion , a very badly worn sprocket and messed up oiler gears. The owner got new parts except for the plastic oiler gear under the clutch which I needed instead of just that spring arm that turns the gear via the notch in the clutch sprocket. I was able to get the new and used parts to work and get the saw starting better and the oiler working and the owner was very happy.
Now the saw is back on my bench for second time only this time we have a no start problem unless you primed it heavy choked it and then it would start, lean out and die. I thought it would be a simple carb cleaning easy fix to get the saw running . The logical assumption was it wasn't getting fuel but this wasn't the case that darn used plastic oiler gear under the clutch came back to haunt me. That gear in the first picture wasn't as rough looking when I put it back together the first time but degraded to the point it tore the crank seal apart and caused the saw not to be able to create vacuum to pull fuel out of the carb hence no starting without a prime.
I am not putting that saw back together without a new gear like I wanted in the first place . It looks like it got hot at some point and just kept digging into the crank seal . If anyone has a different theory I would appreciate it because I am sure I didn't put any parts back together wrong the first time unless they were wrong to start with. After removing that gear to look at the seal it was sitting in it's housing(?) or seat a little crooked or raised on one side and not sitting level . The saw is old and I can't help but think that maybe with the age of the saw it got tired and the saws compression pushed it out just enough to get chewed up by that oiler gear.
That is the jist of my saw problems and if anyone has other thoughts feel free to speak up.
There is more to this story so if your not bored by reading this long post, keep reading. I'll try to keep it brief. I am only putting this in here in case some one needs to get a peak inside an 88. They are just different to work on . This is by no means a 088 fix it tutorial
First is the carb . I had that big Tilly carb with it's limiter caps out twice to give it a good cleaning and inspection. I was sure surprised to see limiter caps on this old of a saw. The first time I had to really study it to see how to remove the carb. It is a little tricky to remove it from the air box. Stihl over engineered this set-up to me but who am I to say what is good and what is not a good idea. The saw has two throttle linkages , one coming from the trigger , the other from the choke lever up to the throttle plate in the carb and a third lever for the choke plate . The handle cover comes off first to expose the trigger to remove the first linkage, next the screw on the bottom right in the pic comes out to remove the keeper holding the choke lever in place. Then the choke lever has to come up and out of it's retainer, slide it to the left to slide off the choke rod and the second throttle rod lever off the choke lever. Also undo fuel line, pulse line and that air box plug that goes over idle and Hand L screws. Clear as mud , the pics kind of show what I am talking about if you look at them close. I am probably not explaining this all that good but it isn't that hard as long as you study things and not get crazy by forcing pieces apart or forcing them back together. When putting all this back together you do things in reverse but have to play with that ignition ground strap that kills the spark making sure it is in it's proper place on the choke lever . Practice makes perfect and the second time was much easier.
OK , one more item, the exhaust, again I never ran into a set-up like this one . The muffler is held in place with two c clips that go onto the muffler itself and the cylinder block and held in place with that heavy wire retainer along with two bolts at the front of muffler that screw into the crankcase . Again the pics show what I am talking about.
I am not crazy about this feature either. The only reason I removed the muffler was to look at the piston to see if had a bad ring or something out of the ordinary as to why the saw wouldn't start. I also don't like this arrangement because I am at a loss as to how to get a good seal around the exhaust port to do a pressure vac test . Blocking the carb is easy enough to do but sealing the exhaust port is not so easy. Any ideas would be helpful. It is not like doing most saws by unbolting the muffler ,slide a rubber gasket between the exhaust port and muffler and retighten the muffler to seal the exhaust port. I can't find any kind of rubber gasket material that is thin enough to allow those c clips to be put back in place to seal the exhaust port . I would like to do some kind pressure vac test when the new crank seal goes in but it looks like I'll have to wing it on this one. Any help with this would be useful.
Ok , end of story . I hope this has been some what helpful if you ever need to work on an 88 because I am leaving a lot out and hasn't been too boring.
Edit, I did it again by playing around with the edit function and got the pics in the wrong order they should be at the end of the post verses the beginning . I am going to leave it as is . Sorry
View attachment 657026 View attachment 657026 View attachment 657027