Craftsman/ Husqvarna 50cc 20 inch Chainsaw Air Filter Question

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Thats a great idea, I have never seen lengths of o ring material before......I will check the local parts store.
You can buy an "O" ring making kit it comes with various sized lengths of "O" ring rubber a cutting/joining template single edge razor blade & super glue you can buy top up parts which is the rubber I was referring to you don't want to have to buy a lot of sizes you will not use I saw this when a fitter came to work on a harvester in the forest.
 
I have been running one of these saws HARD for the past two years or so. I keep the filter/air box greased and that takes care of it for me. Its messy for sure, but simple and easy. Spending time and money with RTV and o-rings is a waste when it comes time to replace the air filter. I did cut the paper flocking out of one and glue in some UNI air fiilter material with marginal success.
 
Work has still been really busy for me, and a wind storm came thru and took down 3 trees on the 22 acre property I maintain. So instead of mowing/trimming like usual I was asked to bring in my saw and cut the downed trees and haul them off. I worked side by side with 2 other guys. One with a Stihl MS170 and another with a Husky 445. The Stihl is just a small pruning saw so I didnt pay any attention to that, but we took the opportunity to pit the Craftsman Husky against the Husky 445. Both had perfectly sharp chains and we cut the exact same piece of wood. The Craftsman cut much faster and the engine was much more torquey than the 445. Once I got home from work, I gave the chain a quick touch up, and made sure all of the rakers were proper depth and cleaned up as well. Took the sprocket cover off and cleaned it all up. Now that the saw is clean I will remove the air filter and do a q tip swab of the airbox behind the filter and see if the grease is working.

Question.....Is the air filter I posted pics above cleanable? It seems to be made from a nylon type material like a K&N outerwear prefilter. So I am hoping its cleanable with dish soap and warm water. This time I am gonna use red waterproof grease to seal the filter as opposed to the regular moly grease I used before.
 
So far I really like this saw. Today it paid for itself. I picked up a proper size chain file and guide, as well as a raker file,depth guage from amazon a while back. The chain performs very well. After I gave each tooth one pass with the file, I went ahead and checked the raker heights. They were a tad tall, so I tried out the new tool and filed them down a small amount.
 
I think its gonna rain the next 3 days so I am gonna try and do theairbox check and air filter cleaning on this saw, and install a fuel shutoff valve on my tractor. I also gotta change the oil on my generator.
 
OK, so I finally had time to remove the air filter and swab the box out. I didnt get any particles on the q tip, but I did get some of the black grease pulled into the airbox. I used wd 40 to break down the grease on the air filter channel, then power clean to remove the wd40, then dish soap and water to remove that. Resealed with thicker marine grade red grease. The air filter was really dirty after cutting about 7 trees into manageable pieces. I also mowed the yard, installed a fuel shutoff on the tractor, changed the oil on the generator, and transplanted a tree........Relaxing day off lemme tell ya.....
 
Yesterday I had to cut and remove another moss oak that fell on a property I maintain. This was the first time I had used the saw since I sharpened the chain and reset the raker height and cleaned the air filter. It was kinda hard to start at first, but ran like a champ while I was limbing the tree. It was fully warmed up and I let it sit for a bit while I was hauling off the brush. When I went to restart it after sittiing it gave me a hard time starting. I think I may be a tad lean on the low speed screw.....Any thoughts on this? Im thinkin the air filter was a tad clogged so when I cleaned it it may need a tad more fuel than before.

The new sharpened chain really cut well. I made about 8-10 flull bar length cuts thru the 26 inch round oak. It bit in and pulled hard all the way thru the cut.
 
These saws are set real lean on the high side so I'd richen it up slightly. The carburetors on these are sensitive to small adjustments and take about 1/8th of a turn on low and high screws.
 
I thought so, I have already richened it up a good bit during the initial break in but I will give it a tad more fuel and see how that works.

It cant need much, as it didint have any lean bogging issues while it was warmed up. Originally when I had to first adjust the carb it did. That time I think I added almost a half turn of fuel on high and a few hours on the low.
 
The filter element seems to need a gasket or "o" ring, because the clip that holds the element in place is not bent correctly from the factory.
If you look real closely at the element, it has a notch molded into the plastic to hold the wire clip in place. The problem is that the clip is bent too loose, and it bypasses this notch.
I took off the clip and increased the bend in it with a pair of pliers, and now it holds the element snug against the air box like it was designed to do.
TL
 
OK, So I am on my second year of owning and using this saw. I would estimate I have used it to cut down maybe 10 trees so far. When I took it out for the first time since last use it was a tad lean for the cold,dry winter air. I richened up the H and L screw 1/8 turn each and that did the trick. I let the chan get a tad loose and made a bad choice on a cut and threw the chain. Upon reinstalling the chain I noticed the chain was damaged and the links no longer pivoted freely. So I picked up a new Oregon D70 chain last nite to replace the original chain that was still cutting perfectly. I will install the new chain tomorrow. Its supposed to be the chain that the saw came with originally. I am still using the grease to seal the air filter and a 36:1 fuel mixture of ethanol free fuel.
 

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