MS461 hard to pull rope

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We put the saw to use accessing our mountain place yesterday, there were sixteen trees across the road in the five miles before.

Still haven’t heard back about welding the broken piece.

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I usually charge around $35-50 to repair those upper spike mounts, depending on the damage. The saw needs to be completely torn down and I need just the case half.
 
I usually charge around $35-50 to repair those upper spike mounts, depending on the damage. The saw needs to be completely torn down and I need just the case half.

Not an unusual break?

I wouldn’t think the saw needs to be completely torn down. If that’s the case it won’t get repaired, I don’t see that being worth it.
 
Not an unusual break?

I wouldn’t think the saw needs to be completely torn down. If that’s the case it won’t get repaired, I don’t set that being worth it.

Nope, not unusual at all.

It has to be torn down as I'm likely to overheat the case gasket when welding and the cleaner I can get the part the better it welds. So I like to put them through an industrial washing machine and bead blast the weld area.

Stihl cases are by far the worst to weld. The base metal seems to have lots of impurities in it which create voids while welding and the castings are porous which hold contaminates such as oil. Even with a lot of prep you can still see I ended up with pin holes in the heat effected zone of the welds.


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I wouldn’t think the saw needs to be completely torn down. If that’s the case it won’t get repaired, I don’t see that being worth it.

I always chuckle a bit at the distaste for disassembly that my son, a college freshmen, displays when we work on things. Lately I've been building a welding truck up, my son is here for spring break helping me. I bought the truck new as a cab and chassis in 1999 and it has ~60k on it. I built the flatbed in a configuration I call 'yellow iron tender', to take care of the excavators and loaders of past business endeavors. This Chevy truck has been sitting for a number of years and it suffers from a common GMC ailment of the late 90's, the paint is peeling because of the crappy primer Chevy was forced to use by the EPA. I have to strip the paint off since you can peel it off in sheets. To strip, I need to take the factory fender flares off. I was kind of incensed that Chevy installed those so you have to remove the fenders themselves to get to the nuts on the back of the flares, which are inside the fender. Both fenders are a couple hour job, is all. About 20 bolts each and a couple beers. Still I bitched about it and my son was totally discombobulated. But I have had a simple hose failure that took two days of disassembly to access on excavators and even worse are farm tractor hoses which seem to be designed by a master idiot.. But it's part of the job. You just knuckle down and do it to it.

Tearing down a saw is child's play. In fact, a guy who has done it before can have it all the way apart in less time than it takes to get the impurities out of that porous magnesium case prepping it for a weld. When I say child's play, I mean It's easy. And best of all, it's FUN! And the end product is satisfying, useful and better than it was before you started.

You just have to knuckle down and get started on it.
 
I’m not that old, my grandpa was 29 when WWII started. I don’t like the new ways though, and don’t live my life that way.

My dad was 19. Became a Corsair pilot.

I am DAMNED if I can't teach my son to deal with the mechanical stuff in his life. He was born in 2000, when I was 43 years old. He is a 4.0 economics major at Idaho State. All his buddies couldn't fight their way out of a wet chainsaw breakdown to save their lives! Drives me nuts that they not only don't have any common repair capabilities, they don't even pretend to care for the most part. I lucked out though, the kid wants a summer job and I am going to have a mobile welding business going by then. Sink or swim time baby.


I did start him young enough. It just is so hard for today's kids.

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