Where's WYK been, and what trouble is he making?

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So these bad boyz showed up today. 394 needs to be gone thru(and likely cleaned up and new pistoned - will a 395 piston have compatible ring ends?).The other is a 390 about to be ported.

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Interesting the 394 is full wrap, but low top. While they are heavier, I like my 395 way more than my 390. Fortunately I don't cary a saw far.

Yeah in my book a 390 needs to be at least lightly woods ported to be a decent saw since it is so freaking heavy. I mean, over built is nice for longevity, but they are pigs in the field. While they give up some displacement to the 066/660, they do have great anti vibe by comparison.

Remember when we did the 385 VS 066 video over in Yamhill at Jerry's place (which I can not find for the life of me)? That was like 12 years ago now. Ugh, I am so old. When you hefted my fully loaded 385 you were like 'It's a fat pig!'.

Speaking of an over built fat pig, this 394 bare weighs what that fully loaded 390 does. But geziz do the 394's turn and burn. But this one is acting like it is burnt up a bit inside. Maybe also needs a carb kit as well. We'll see. Hope I can find a replacement piston...

This guy also has a few other huskies and Stihls that need work, so you'll see more in the future if I don't blow these up.
You're right, full wraps are rare here. He uses this mainly for felling big trees or hard woods.

A quick search shows the 395 piston works:

https://www.arboristsite.com/threads/394xp-piston.247150/
I'm gonna drop this cylinder so unlikely would a ring end find itself in the intake anyways.
 
So I pulled on this 394xp thing and it gave me this:

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There is a hint of scoring on the piston, but it looks OK. So I turned her over and I got the loudest pop of my life, and flames flew all about the place. So had a good idea what the problem might have been...

Whoever was in this thing before me dented the **** out of the nut. Did they not have a socket around?

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There's yer problem:

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not sure if the key is sheared all to hell, or if they gave it a slight timing advance previously.


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So gonna go ahead and do a mild port on this thing so it doesn't kill any one, and slap her together without the gasket for hopefully 175-180psi, which would be perfect for a work 394. Coz, I gotta tell ya, pulling that thing for 165psi not only made me realize how old I am, but also kept resetting my compression gauge it hit so hard. I had to unscrew the gauge 1/2 turn to keep it from resetting since it is designed to attach directly to the cylinder without a hose.

Don't suppose anyone has a 394/395 muffler for sale? Rare as hens teeth here...
 
Needed a good vice to hold small things like mufflers etc. Shopped around for a few days and found a guy on the other side of Dublin that restored vices.
He said this one only needed primer and a new coat. It mostly sat in a builders garage doing not much of anything it's whole life.
They stopped making these in the 70's, and started in 1937. It definitely isn't an early model, though. One of the reasons it's in such condition is it appears no welder or mechanic got a hold of it. Prolly lived it's life around timber. The 'J' models are also made of hardened steel vs iron.

She is 4.5 inch jaws with a 5.5" opening.

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Shhh. Don't tell the wife I had it on the kitchen table while marking in the embossed letters. :)

ETA - gonna call her 'Red Sonia'
 
The older I get, the harder it is to build benches. I am exhausted. The worst part was hand sawing the timber in the parking lot to get it to fit in my tiny Irish car(which is actually French). I got to get me a battery circular saw.

173186618.LsTo21M4.viceonbench.jpeg
the entire time I was over there, I only saw one full sized truck, an F150, fairly new one at that, but it had scratches and dents all down each side of it... mirrors were taped on too lol
 
If you look at the backing on that bench you'll notice some figuring on the wood. Except that's pressure treated Spruce. It's not figuring, it's water. You can see that leg on the right is also damp.
As an added bonus, because this is Ireland much of the timber was wet - and my cheap ass mitre saw blade does not like wet timber. So I am gonna have to hit it with the orbital tomorrow to knock off all the frayed wood. Assuming it's dried by then.
 
So the 395 piston does indeed work with the 394. I removed the bottom ring since it is rather low on this piston, and sure why not. But I mainly did it to make installing the piston easier. On my first attempt, one of the rings actually popped into the intake as I was moving the cylinder down. I found with just the top ring and installing it with the cylinder turned about 30* off center until it cleared the intake and it was fine.

She should be all cured by today. I ended up with .030 squish after the install. At the stock .049 she had 165psi compression. So hopefully close to 175 now and a better burn pattern. I did a mild port job on her, gutted the exhaust, and added 5* of timing advance. We have 95 octane fuel here as standard, and cool weather year round, so I advance the timing on almost everything I can.
 
This was a cool little drone footage of the next village over from us I thought I would share. It shows the area well. At the beginning and end of the video you can actually see our house way in the background closer to da sea. At the start our house is near where the 'Y' in Enniskerry falls, but you can't really make it out.



This village featured prominently in that terrible Disney movie 'Disenchanted'.
 

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