MS461 hard to pull rope

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How does the cylinder look on the intake side? Crank feels good? If so, Get a new piston kit, either oem or meteor. This isn’t why it’s hard to pull though, but needs to be done. Reassemble and make sure you do a press/vac test before running. I’m not sure what the original problem is/ was.
 
Piston only?



I’ll check.

Intake side of the piston looks all scratched up, the vertical lines in it.
The more black looking horizontal scratches look like possible cracks in the first pict posted. I cannot tell from here,you have the saw there so you must look and tell us what you can see.
 
That should clean up with some maroon scotchbrite lubricated with wd40 unless your finger nail catches on those vertical streaks. I’m guessing that damage was done from a severely neglected air filter. Just make sure that crank is good before you order any parts. Look at the big end bearing of the rod real good and make sure the crank is not bent. Make sure there is no wobble on the pto side when you turn it. Make a pointer or use a dial indicator, something so you can see if it’s bent, turn the flywheel side and watch the pto side, take the piston off the rod so it doesn’t hang up
 
Also, when you rotate the crank now you should feel absolutely no resistance areas like you were describing if you still have the coil off. It should feel the same through the whole rotation. If you still feel those areas of resistance, something happened to the crank or the crankshaft bearing.
 
I took it to the local saw shop. They know me, I have them resharpen chains. The service guy looked it over and said it needs piston, rings, pin, bearing, keepers, and gasket. He thinks the damage is from it running lean and swelling the piston. The line on the piston does catch my fingernail, but he still thinks it’s not a crack. He says the cylinder is good, but must be ball honed every time you replace the piston. He felt the crank and said it’s good, I’ll also check it for what you said.

The circled areas look good.

Edit: added bearing to list.
 
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