I was laying in bed last week and talked myself into getting this thing together while I'm off recuperating from surgery. Yesterday I thought I'd start by cleaning the bench off and going through all the parts. I'd then work on it a little each day, taking several days to complete it. But as always, once I started, I couldn't quit. It was a marathon session, literally all night last night. I finished about 7 AM. All that was left was to get a rope for the starter. I couldn't start it myself anyway, so when Rob got here this afternoon, we dropped by the Stihl dealer, got some rope, and proceeded to fire it up.
There are a few details left to finish. The background around the Solo name on both the recoil and the cylinder cover is supposed to be black. Then the letters are polished back to bare metal. I'm also searching for a new bar. I'm thinking a 24" will be plenty.
I also have a second Solo Twin that I bought since I got this first one. It has the less common 110cc cylinders and the topend is literally like new. It looks to have hardly been run. I planned to put them on this saw, but that wasn't to be. The pistons have drop into the crankcase at least 1/2" at BDC and the case on this other Twin is larger to accept them. It was way too much material to try and remove on my already assembled crankcase. I have a few hurdles to jump, but I plan to finish this second Twin and have it running as well. It won't be a complete cosmetic restoration, but should be a good solid runner when I'm done.
Here I'm starting to sort through parts.
Parts from the second Twin.
Figuring out how the crank and case go together. I've already bolted the bottom of the oil reservoir onto the bottom of the crankcase. This thing is built more like a motorcycle/quad engine than a chainsaw.
The shortblock is together.
Sadly, that's all the pics I took during the assembly. It was a chore. Everything has to go together in the right order. I also installed new condensers and cleaned up the wiring.
I didn't yet have the air filter cleaner knob on it in this pic.
There are a few details left to finish. The background around the Solo name on both the recoil and the cylinder cover is supposed to be black. Then the letters are polished back to bare metal. I'm also searching for a new bar. I'm thinking a 24" will be plenty.
I also have a second Solo Twin that I bought since I got this first one. It has the less common 110cc cylinders and the topend is literally like new. It looks to have hardly been run. I planned to put them on this saw, but that wasn't to be. The pistons have drop into the crankcase at least 1/2" at BDC and the case on this other Twin is larger to accept them. It was way too much material to try and remove on my already assembled crankcase. I have a few hurdles to jump, but I plan to finish this second Twin and have it running as well. It won't be a complete cosmetic restoration, but should be a good solid runner when I'm done.
Here I'm starting to sort through parts.
Parts from the second Twin.
Figuring out how the crank and case go together. I've already bolted the bottom of the oil reservoir onto the bottom of the crankcase. This thing is built more like a motorcycle/quad engine than a chainsaw.
The shortblock is together.
Sadly, that's all the pics I took during the assembly. It was a chore. Everything has to go together in the right order. I also installed new condensers and cleaned up the wiring.
I didn't yet have the air filter cleaner knob on it in this pic.
