Stihl 041, points or electronic

On a 041, without pulling the fyl wheel can you tell if it has points or
electronic ignition?

Look for another wire, other than the kill wire, comming off the coil, or wires running under the flywheel.

sawinredneck said:

Look for another wire, other than the kill wire, comming off the coil, or wires running under the flywheel.

Click to expand...

On this one all I can see is the fly wheel, kill wire and plug wire.

Just pull the flywheel... on these old saws never trust what anyone may have done.. you might find an Nova module hiding beneath the flywheel.

Or.. you can put a multimeter on the switch wire (to ground), and turn the saw over by hand. You'll see the points open and close..

Trigger-Time said:

On this one all I can see is the fly wheel, kill wire and plug wire.

Click to expand...

That's all you ever see.. The common is on the points, or module (beneath the flywheel).
Points have adjustment windows on the flywheel, but so do some electronic versions so it isn't a good guide. You can open those windows though and peak inside.

Lakeside53 said:

Just pull the flywheel... on these old saws never trust what anyone may have done.. you might find an Nova module hiding beneath the flywheel.

Or.. you can put a multimeter on the switch wire (to ground), and turn the saw over by hand. You'll see the points open an close..

Click to expand...

I have pulled a few fly wheels off without a puller on some parts
saws I have yet to damage one.....but this is not my saw (I will
buy a puller)

Lake,I will go test it.

Lakeside53 said:

That's all you ever see.. The common is on the points, or module (beneath the flywheel).
Points have adjustment windows on the flywheel, but so do some electronic versions so it isn't a good guide. You can open those windows though and peak inside.

Click to expand...

Lake, No windows on fly wheel, No change in ohms in 360 deg. of turn

You'll never know for sure unless you pull it:hmm3grin2orange: but it's likely electronic.
If you have no spark and suspect a bad module, replace it with a nova; just snip the wire going under the flywheel and mount the nova on the outside.

Edit: Ignore the "snip the wire" part - I have my ignitions confused... I'm pretty sure you just put the nova module in place of the strator plate module.

Lakeside53 said:

You'll never know for sure unless you pull it:hmm3grin2orange: but it's likely electronic.
If you have no spark and suspect a bad module, replace it with a nova; just snip the wire going under the flywheel and mount the nova on the outside.

Click to expand...

Don't have a clue............Can I buy one, online?

Pulled fly wheel. It has no spark at all. I'm lost on this electronic stuff (and most anything else)

Bad?

If I'm checking it right, its bad correct?

Depends... The resistance will be very low on the coil primary (I don't have the 041 spec in front of me, and I'm out of town for a few days..). Your meter can resolve 0.1ohm, so... it doesn't look good. Coil failures are rare, but easy to fix. Plenty of used coils available.

Get someone with access to a service manual to copy the page showing how to gap the replacement coil. I can get to it mid next week at the earliest.

Lakeside53 said:

Depends... The resistance will be very low on the coil primary (I don't have the 041 spec in front of me, and I'm out of town for a few days..). Your meter can resolve 0.1ohm, so... it doesn't look good. Coil failures are rare, but easy to fix. Plenty of used coils available.

Click to expand...

When I set the tester on milliohms it reads zero resistance

strator plate

After pulling the strator plate off, reinstalling how do you set the
air gap?

Trigger-Time said:

After pulling the strator plate off, reinstalling how do you set the
air gap?

Click to expand...

Found a parts saw today, after taking the coil and strator plate off
the adjustment looks to be timing, not air gap. So how do you
set the timing?.............Or is the timing adjustable?
Or did they just leave the adjustment holes in the strator plate
when they switched over to the EI? Thats what i'm guessing

On the old points models they are set at the factory and there is a strike mark on the plate and crank case... Line up the strike marks... If you are moving them from saw to saw.. trial and error...

Your other questions... I'll have to dig into the 041 service manual tomorrow.

The primary resistance is 0.4 to 0.6 ohm, and the secondary (plug wire end to frame ground) is 2.7 to 3.3k ohm.

I think I'm wrong about replacing the 041 electronic system with a Nova module. The 041 electronic (two types - Bosch and SEM) has a 4 pole magnet system (to stop the saw from running backwards), not the 2 pole of the points version. The points style can be replaced with a Nova.

I have a plethora of information on both the 041 points and electronic systems. I'll need to scan it to post... in a day or so... This includes setting the air-gap and the timing (with a timing light).

Lakeside53 said:

The primary resistance is 0.4 to 0.6 ohm, and the secondary (plug wire end to frame ground) is 2.7 to 3.3k ohm.

I think I'm wrong about replacing the 041 electronic system with a Nova module. The 041 electronic (two types - Bosch and SEM) has a 4 pole magnet system (to stop the saw from running backwards), not the 2 pole of the points version. The points style can be replaced with a Nova.

I have a plethora of information on both the 041 points and electronic systems. I'll need to scan it to post... in a day or so... This includes setting the air-gap and the timing (with a timing light).

Click to expand...

Lake, yes I for one would like the info.

In this case both saws have the SEM electronic system. When I put
the donor EI in the good saw I set it as close as I could to how the
bad EI was set. It seems to run good, it took 2 pulls to start and run after setting for over 24 hours @ about 30 deg F

Not to wiz on anyone's taco but......

Could you explain to me how this ignition would prevent the saw running backwards?
And where you got such an idea?

As an aside......this saw did have a problem with coil failure due to the small coil size and complete lack of air flow for cooling.

On points models N-N-N-S magnets.. on electronic models - N-S-S-S magnets. Common in its era... from both Bosch and SEM. The Bosch factory manual explains why it prevents the saw running in reverse. I'll try to dig up a copy. Might even be in the Stihl pages I'm about to scan. I'll get them up today.

Heat? It's a possibility, but I'm not sure you can say that's why this coil failed. It is 25+ years old, and for every rare failure there is one heck of a lot of perfectly fine working coils...