Damage to saw by starting up and not using

[Huskybill]

It depends on what gas we’re using. Todays corn alcohol gas/mix lasts 30 days. Where our standard gas lasts a lot longer. In the springtime when mud season hits my saws get cleaned, sharpened, liquids topped off, they get stored. They sit months till the cutting season starts in the fall. Sometimes I start them all up in the middle of the summer. Let them idle.

 

[rumatt]

It's not about lubricating the parts. It's about the piston and cylinder expanding at different rates as they heat up.

 

[sb47]

It depends on what gas we’re using. Todays corn alcohol gas/mix lasts 30 days. Where our standard gas lasts a lot longer. In the springtime when mud season hits my saws get cleaned, sharpened, liquids topped off, they get stored. They sit months till the cutting season starts in the fall. Sometimes I start them all up in the middle of the summer. Let them idle.

It's not about lubricating the parts. It's about the piston and cylinder expanding at different rates as they heat up.


Alcohol burns hotter then pump gas so it will heat up faster like ethanol fuel does.

His explanation does make seance but again I have never had an issue. And it's not hot here all the time, we do have cold weather in the winter so the expansion rate is different depending on ambient air temps. I would suspect that the colder it is the more it apt to happen. When I was racing 2 strokes it was back when most were air cooled bikes. Then when water cooled 2 strokes came in it was more common. My guess with water cooled engines the cylinder takes a lot longer to heat up making it more common for water cooled engines.

 

[holeycow]

There's a thing. It's called a "4 corner seizure". It's a real thing. Google that ****.

Forged pistons have a particular propensity for this malady.

Anywho, good luck all! I will continue to warm all of my different engines/machines up; not all of them for the same particular reasons, btw.

Some of us have seen enough to know better.

 

[Bob Hedgecutter]

My own way of thinking- you have to let the metals get to know each other again before you go balls to the wall with the throttle trigger.
In other words I let my own saws warm up for a bit before giving them wide open throttle, but that is me and the saws are mine.

Back to the original post- the company does the checks, the company own the saw, so the company are free to do what they see fit.
Seems to me if it is a regular weekly routine and the saw still starts for the check each week........ it cant be doing too much harm....... yet.

 

[Bwildered]

Most carbureted engines won't rev out & run properly until they are warm anyhow, 2 or 4 stroke.

 

[cedarhollow]

i would think what your doing would keep carb from getting gummed up

 

[Canyon Angler]

i would think what your doing would keep carb from getting gummed up

...and running the carb dry would do it even better, without having to start them up every week.

I've heard that most engine wear occurs when engines are first started, due to less lubrication then, as well as different rates of expansion of the various parts until everything reaches a happy equilibrium at normal operating temperature. If that's true, I see no benefit to leaving fuel in the saws (where it can gum eventually) and starting them every week and subjecting them to "startup wear" needlessly... but to each their own.

 

[Huskybill]

I keep my saws in a woodstove heated garage during the cold months. They don’t get started cold. In the heated garage there pampered. When transported in the truck to the woodlot there inside the heated cab of the truck, so is the bar oil. The pampering ends when I smell two stroke oil.