Lessons learned on 045/056 Rebuilds

[Coralillo Lo Pro]

A few months back I decided to rebuild the 045 Super I bought years ago along with the semi working 056 Super parts saw I bought a bit later. Both had been the bane of my existence til I retired them, as I learned about their faulty ignition design, unobtainium bearings/seals,etc., while hopelessly trying to get them to work right. Had high hopes once I finally got NOS bearings and seals, Foggysailed one ignition and got a German aftermarket Sagenpezi for the other, and got new jugs and pistons. Tracked down every little missing odd and end to complete them both. Then to my profound frustration, neither worked even as good as they had before, or even at all to start with. Fixed some loose ignition wiring and got spark and some life, but then months of cleaning, rebuilding carbs, taking them on and off, trying different jet settings, trying to get them to run consistently, I'd keep discovering little problems that got them running a bit better, but always always always spitting gas out the carbs and never reliable.
Finally accepted the carbs were not likely the problem after rebuilding three and buying another rebuilt one, I did what would have saved me months of headache and bought a $75 Mityvac kit. Found the ignition side crank seal wasn't seated properly at all and the clutch side was leaking from between the outer race and casing. Took advice given about an old 064 with the latter problem and put Loctite around the outer race and pumped up a vacuum to draw it in. Seems to be holding vacuum real well now. Wish I'd paid attention to all the talk of pressure testing crankcases, thought it required more specialized equipment than it does. No point in ever fully assembling a saw til you know the crankcase is well sealed.
Anyway, will be a bit of time before I get the first one all back together because I have to re-do the Foggysail fix since I never secured the capacitor and wiring to the shell of the saw well enough and one of the wires partially got shredded by the flywheel. But fairly confident that after untold time wasted, I've finally gotten on the right track and will get these saws back to their original glory that I've never seen. Also wish I'd discovered ultrasonic cleaners before I started all this, one of the best inventions I've come across for small parts cleaning.

 

[Long Bar 60]

Over the years, from the late 70's clear into the early 90's if I remember correctly, I had a total of 23 045/056's. All were used in western production timber cutting. Loved those saws. I spent most of my time cutting really steep skyline yarder ground back then and even though there was a lot of big timber down in those canyons those saws were my "go to" motors because of their lighter weight (compared to the 075's and 090's) and higher chain speed. We still had those big saws down in the hole when we needed long bars but they sat off to the side much of the time.
The 045/056's were reliable, smooth and fast. We ran 36" bars on them. They really came to life with a green weenie air filter and the later model dual port mufflers. Of course the increase in displacement was the real performance enhancer. The last generation of 056 Mag II's would pull a 50" bar just fine. My only complaint about these saws was that as the performance increased over the years, the fuel tank size didn't. There were times during hard cutting where you couldn't even get 20 minutes out of a tank. Oh yea, I just remembered having to keep the oil cap really tight too but that was no big deal. I never had any ignition problems but learned to use a lot of loctite and checked the AV buffers on a regular basis.
I have a video of me cutting with one back in the 80's and the saw performance is pretty impressive. My body looked a lot more impressive back then too. LOL Have fun with those saws!

 

[Mad Professor]

Over the years, from the late 70's clear into the early 90's if I remember correctly, I had a total of 23 045/056's. All were used in western production timber cutting. Loved those saws. I spent most of my time cutting really steep skyline yarder ground back then and even though there was a lot of big timber down in those canyons those saws were my "go to" motors because of their lighter weight (compared to the 075's and 090's) and higher chain speed. We still had those big saws down in the hole when we needed long bars but they sat off to the side much of the time.
The 045/056's were reliable, smooth and fast. We ran 36" bars on them. They really came to life with a green weenie air filter and the later model dual port mufflers. Of course the increase in displacement was the real performance enhancer. The last generation of 056 Mag II's would pull a 50" bar just fine. My only complaint about these saws was that as the performance increased over the years, the fuel tank size didn't. There were times during hard cutting where you couldn't even get 20 minutes out of a tank. Oh yea, I just remembered having to keep the oil cap really tight too but that was no big deal. I never had any ignition problems but learned to use a lot of loctite and checked the AV buffers on a regular basis.
I have a video of me cutting with one back in the 80's and the saw performance is pretty impressive. My body looked a lot more impressive back then too. LOL Have fun with those saws!

Post the video!!!

 

[Coralillo Lo Pro]

The 045/056's were reliable, smooth and fast. We ran 36" bars on them. They really came to life with a green weenie air filter and the later model dual port mufflers.

Yeah, adding foam air filters to them once they're running right, and one has the dual port exhaust. They're SO much lighter than my 880 with a fair amount of grunt that I really want to get them working for milling. To be honest, I feel like the infamous ignition problems were more a result of them being a 20 year old saw by the time people had regular problems with failing ignitions. I imagine for at least the first decade the saws were pretty damn reliable. The proprietary grooved crank bearing is a nuisance but only because it's proprietary - I imagine those lasted at least 20 years for a lot of people too. Can't ask much more out of a saw than that. I bought mine when they were about 30 years old so came with the hard to get parts issues many 30 year old products have.
Feel like they fill a niche absent in Stihl's line today. Kind of a light baby 880. Higher revs than the big saws, but still designed for torque more than RPM's unlike Stihl's whole line now except the 880. Great milling saw in that regard. Wouldn't mind having a Magnum II but at 87cc the Super has plenty of power. MS661's cost too much for me to even think about these days, and I won't buy clone saws, so since I had these already seemed to make the most sense to put my time and money into rebuilding them and should have saws good for another 20 years. Love the all metal construction.

 

[Long Bar 60]

Post the video!!!

I'm leaving for Lake Tahoe to celebrate Independence Day but when I get back I'll see if I can figure out how to get that video onto my laptop. It started on VHS then was made into a DVD and this laptop still has a DVD player so maybe I can get one of my techno friends to put it on my laptop and then I can post it here. I'm really low tech, still have a flip phone and just stated texting this last winter so I'll probably need help. As I recall it's about 30 minutes long and was filmed near Truckee California. In fact, the photographer pans across the big canyon and you can see Squaw Valley ski resort with no snow in the distance. This was the worst logging job of my life and even worse for one of my employees as he got killed on that job. The only good thing was that the autopsy said he died either instantly upon impact or within moments. He was only 23 years old with an 18 month old baby.
Ted Goodwin- "A loggers life is a short and painful hitch between the cradle and the grave."

 

[Mad Professor]

I'm leaving for Lake Tahoe to celebrate Independence Day but when I get back I'll see if I can figure out how to get that video onto my laptop. It started on VHS then was made into a DVD and this laptop still has a DVD player so maybe I can get one of my techno friends to put it on my laptop and then I can post it here. I'm really low tech, still have a flip phone and just stated texting this last winter so I'll probably need help. As I recall it's about 30 minutes long and was filmed near Truckee California. In fact, the photographer pans across the big canyon and you can see Squaw Valley ski resort with no snow in the distance. This was the worst logging job of my life and even worse for one of my employees as he got killed on that job. The only good thing was that the autopsy said he died either instantly upon impact or within moments. He was only 23 years old with an 18 month old baby.
Ted Goodwin- "A loggers life is a short and painful hitch between the cradle and the grave."

Have a great 4th holiday, God bless you.

 

[Coralillo Lo Pro]

I'm leaving for Lake Tahoe to celebrate Independence Day

Have a great 4th - wish I was in Tahoe and not the Texas heat. Spent most of the 90's living there. Never got tired of the beauty every day I woke up. Roamed a lot of that backcountry over the years hiking, mtn biking, and snowboarding.

 

[Coralillo Lo Pro]

Seals were my issue the whole time with my rebuilds, not carbs. Botched the seal installs on ignition side. Read a post of Pogo's from last year where he had problems getting the right seal for the ignition side on one of these saws and it explained why I had one saw with a metal rimmed seal and one without a rim, though they should be the same seal. Some aftermarket sellers are selling plain rubber seals for the ignition side for that part number with no metal rim. Nothing holds them in place and they blow right out. You'd think I couldn't botch both installs if the other seal I got was like the OEM, but I managed. I think I put the seal on the crankshaft before pressing the crankcase back together and tried to push it OUTWARD into the casing that secures it, rather than installing the seal from the outside into the casing. My guess was as a result of that I folded the seal and it shredded during my test runs. Waiting for a pair of OEM Stihl seals and confirmation that you do install those seals from the outside of the crankcase.

 

[Vintage Engine Repairs]

As they say, do it right or do it twice!

 

[Coralillo Lo Pro]

As they say, do it right or do it twice!

Exactly. Only finally got a service manual for them so was having to figure out everything as I went and learn all the odd differences between the 045/056 Supers and different versions of the same model even. I went into it thinking they were basically the same saw which is true to a certain extent but there are a lot of small differences too and they changed a lot of things in the time they made them. But even the service manual is to some degree like those old Haynes auto manuals lol - "install the seal" - without saying much about how. Never have found any teardown videos for those saws either. Throw in a lot of unobtainium OEM parts and dodgy aftermarket parts that don't work and it's more fun than eating rocks...

 

[Long Bar 60]

Post the video!!!

Let's see if this worked. I'm rather low tech. Doesn't seem to be working. I guess I need help from a 10 year old. LOL. I'll keep trying. That 056 in the video is pretty impressive.
Edit: I think it's still loading but not sure.

 

[Coralillo Lo Pro]

Let's see if this worked. I'm rather low tech. Doesn't seem to be working. I guess I need help from a 10 year old. LOL. I'll keep trying. That 056 in the video is pretty impressive.
Edit: I think it's still loading but not sure.

Can't wait to see it. I sometimes get away without earmuffs with my 880 because it's more of a Harley sound than smaller saws (and rev limited), but my 045/056 Super's at full revs are ear splittingly loud. I have the new metal-rimmed ignition side seals coming in today, I got the hard-to-remove blown OEM-style one out last night and the aftermarket pure rubber one on the other saw pops right out, so with the new ones installed the crankcases should finally be sealed properly and the things should roar. Might still have to suck some Loctite in between the outer race of the clutch side bearing and casing on the second saw as I did on the first, with the totally blown ignition side seal on that saw have been unable to pressure test the clutch side at all yet.

 

[Long Bar 60]

Well, this is as far as I got if you can see it. It says, "The uploaded file is too large for the server to process"- whatever that means. I'll tell you this much, I'm not leaving the server a tip if he won't process my order. LOL. Where are all the 10 year old techies when you need them?
I'll keep trying. That 056 I have in the vid makes my heart beat a little faster. Super cool.

 

[cookies]

upload it to youtube then post the link

 

[Long Bar 60]

Well, I don't know how to "link" but it is on YouTube under "Timber Falling near Squaw Valley, CA 1988 so I hope you enjoy. Also, I didn't know how to edit out the beginning and the ending so you get to see non timber cutting stuff.

 

[Coralillo Lo Pro]

Well, I don't know how to "link" but it is on YouTube under "Timber Falling near Squaw Valley, CA 1988 so I hope you enjoy. Also, I didn't know how to edit out the beginning and the ending so you get to see non timber cutting stuff.

Man, those saws are beasts. Making short work of those big trees.

 

[cookies]

 

[cookies]

People are going to freak out when they see steel wedges in use at the 9:15 mark lol

 

[sean donato]

Never mind... cookie found and posted it in the rime it took me to post it lol

 

[sean donato]

I fixed an 056 last sumer for my cousin, bad ignition and a shot pto side bearing/seal. It was a good runner after it was fixed up, but I still suggested he get rid of it. Took a long time to come up with bearings and seals for it.