2021 bad year for me and my equipment

[Stihl99]

2021 thus far has been a huge pain in my arse for my equipment
Broke my first starter pull cord on chainsaw it was an OEM cord and how I never changed it to the true blue cord it beyond me.
Throwed my first chainsaw chain off the bar while limbing a downed tree which it destroyed the chain catch under the clutch cover and scared several drive links where they would not go back in the bar without de-burring and filing, but thankfully no saw or any other damage except my pride.
Purchased and tried my first modded muffler which it did bring the saw to life, however it heat stained my chainsaw's chassis after dropping only two 20" diameter trees, so I am super pissed about that. I am now wondering how the pros' running these mufflers are protecting their saw's chassis or do they not care and when their saw cracks or distorts they just purchase a new one?
MS400's OEM muffler is junk and piss poor designed, the piss poor designed muffler has heat stained my clutch cover and top of my saw's chassis around the serial number area with only five tanks of fuel through it. Complaint with detailed photos has been filed with Stihl.
Broke the first T-27 tip off of a scrench which the hardening of the scrench tip was no good and obvious to see.
Stripped out the first T-27 screw head on a chainsaw muffler "this was a separate incident from the scrench tip breaking off", which I was changing out the muffler for a friend. This required drilling out the head larger to the bolt and using an easy-out to remove the screw.
Bump knob on my FS131 weed eater string head disintegrated at the end, but that was a blessing I am now running the new Stihl head which you feed string in, wind it up, and get to work. No more two pieces of string, disassembly, etc.
Helped my neighbor do some clearing off with my FS250 and destroyed a brand new chisel tooth blade on old discarded roll of fence wire.
To top everything off, it is June.

 

[Bob Hedgecutter]

Sounds about on par to me. Never seen a Stihl yet that did not like to mark its territory and proof of running by discolouration around the exhaust port.
Rest is pretty normal incidences when you run outdoor power equipment.
Even worse are the T27 wrenches with the hole drilled up the middle for tamper proof fixings- have busted the tips off several TENG T handle ones.
The thing is, machines do not break or wear if you leave them sitting polished on a shelf.

 

[big hank]

Wow only a few tiny things? Sounds like it's been a great year!

 

[grizz55chev]

Someone needs a hug!

 

[RED-85-Z51]

Wish id had such good luck, sounds like you should buy 2 of every saw...1 to polish on the shelf and 1 to use, the discoloration is normal, a plastic case saw will even bubble around the muffler.

Sent from my SM-G996U using Tapatalk

 

[Stihl99]

Sounds about on par to me. Never seen a Stihl yet that did not like to mark its territory and proof of running by discolouration around the exhaust port.
Rest is pretty normal incidences when you run outdoor power equipment.
Even worse are the T27 wrenches with the hole drilled up the middle for tamper proof fixings- have busted the tips off several TENG T handle ones.
The thing is, machines do not break or wear if you leave them sitting polished on a shelf.

My condolences if you luck is like mine and I hope it gets better. My saws and equipment are cleaned and polished I will not argue that, but I clean my stuff religiously after my use or project for them is finished. I do not let my stuff sit for weeks without use and not being cleaned again I am not a professional logger like most of your guys are. I have used and do use them heavily except for the last two purchases which the 400 was peer pressure on 5 tanks of fuel through it and the 500i I have owned for 2 days now was slight peer pressure from my dealer, reading about everyone here running one and how much they liked them other than the 500i refused to run when they were too hot, and last the great reviews on you tube.

Wow only a few tiny things? Sounds like it's been a great year!

Well bad year for me the way I keep my stuff serviced, cleaned, and ready to go, my dad drilled that into me while growing up.

Someone needs a hug!

LOL

Wish id had such good luck, sounds like you should buy 2 of every saw...1 to polish on the shelf and 1 to use, the discoloration is normal, a plastic case saw will even bubble around the muffler.

Sent from my SM-G996U using Tapatalk

All my saws are pro saws with the magnesium chassis, that is why I am angry at myself for buying that muffler that heat stained my saw after only dropping two trees with the muffler on, that saw has over 20 gallons of fuel through it with no prior heat staining from the OEM muffler, but the 400 OEM muffler heating staining the clutch cover and chassis with only five tanks of fuel through it tells me that is a piss poor design. I have studied the 400 muffler and know where Stihl screwed up with the design and manufacturing.

 

[grizz55chev]

My condolences if you luck is like mine and I hope it gets better. My saws and equipment are cleaned and polished I will not argue that, but I clean my stuff religiously after my use or project for them is finished. I do not let my stuff sit for weeks without use and not being cleaned again I am not a professional logger like most of your guys are. I have used and do use them heavily except for the last two purchases which the 400 was peer pressure on 5 tanks of fuel through it and the 500i I have owned for 2 days now was slight peer pressure from my dealer, reading about everyone here running one and how much they liked them other than the 500i refused to run when they were too hot, and last the great reviews on you tube.


Well bad year for me the way I keep my stuff serviced, cleaned, and ready to go, my dad drilled that into me while growing up. Take care of your tools, they'll take care of you ( but don't get too carried away! ) glad to see you have a good sense of humor!


LOL


All my saws are pro saws with the magnesium chassis, that is why I am angry at myself for buying that muffler that heat stained my saw after only dropping two trees with the muffler on, that saw has over 20 gallons of fuel through it with no prior heat staining from the OEM muffler, but the 400 OEM muffler heating staining the clutch cover and chassis with only five tanks of fuel through it tells me that is a piss poor design. I have studied the 400 muffler and know where Stihl screwed up with the design and manufacturing.

Nothing wrong with taking pride in your equipment, to a degree. Glad to see you have a sense of humor!

 

[Stihl99]

Nothing wrong with taking pride in your equipment, to a degree. Glad to see you have a sense of humor!

Absolutely bud, we are all here to learn and help if possible.
Here is an example of how I care for my equipment, this 261 is a 2021 model and was purchased this march to replace my dad's two saws he lost in the Feb. flood. the starting was a little too much for him, so I kept it detailed the 241 put it away for hard times and now the 261 is my go to saw for all small items.
I have over seven gallons of fuel through it this year already. I take all the covers off, clean inside and out the best I can, the flywheel and behind it, behind the clutch, around the oil pump, etc.

 

[Woodslasher]

Sounds pretty mild to me. To clarify, when all the stuff listed below happened I was working for a heavy equipment operator who normally does construction but was hired to do a few brushing jobs. I ran a saw for him while he ran the equipment, but I'm not a pro tree guy/logger by trade.
An acquaintance threw the new chain on a 28 inch bar and when he re-installed it he accidentally put the chain next to the rim sprocket and not on it (outboard clutch) and ran it that way for a little bit. I cut the chain down to a 24 (the smallest 3/8 setup I run) to remove the worst sections that were missing the driver teeth and hand filed between 5-15 swipes on each side of each of the remaining 84 drivers to make it usable.
I bent the bar on the pole saw twice in one day, and may have tweaked the shaft but some careful pressure with a dozer blade got everything straightened out.
I tossed 2-3 chains on a nasty job where I was literally crawling on my hands and knees through brush slashing a path for a dozer, and rocked a few chains doing that as well. That job also ruined the admittedly flimsy dogs on my 272.
My 2019 562 purchased new in Feb 2020 now looks beat and like it's ten years old from riding loose in the bed of a truck for a couple of months intermittently.
The recoil on that 562 also had one of the two pegs the engage the flywheel break off, so as a preventative measure I replaced it.
I stripped 3 muffler bolts, two on a 350 and one on a 372. The 350 heads were proud so I ground them off but I had to drill out the 372 bolt head.
The head on my dad's Stihl trimmer got too worn out to "pop" any more, it had lost about 1/8-1/4 of an inch of thickness on the plastic bits that touch the ground so I had to replace that.
Also, I blew up a bar tip on 3 rivet Oregon bar for while my mill while I was on a job with a big time crunch that was 40 minutes from home and my spare bars. When I got home I learned my new, single rivet Oregon tip bar wouldn't work on my mill because a mounting bolt needed to go through the single tip rivet. That led to a mad panic where I called my local n.o.s. parts guy, but he was out of town so I dropped by a neighbor's in the hopes that he had a 3 rivet bar I could steal the tip off of. He didn't, but he had a clamp-on mill so I used that instead.
My 2100 quit on a job mid-day so I finished the day with my 562, a few days later the tensioner on my brother's 2101 broke mid-day, so I had to finish with the 562 again.
On the job where I had to slash a path for the dozer the antenna got ripped off of it, a wiper for the door glass got ripped off, the front laser post broke off (not the operator's fault, the p.o. did a piss-poor weld job that failed), and the exhaust got ripped off (not the operator's fault, the pipe was rusted through and finally gave out).
The mini excavator threw it's track 3 or 4 times in one day on the dozer slash job, re-seating the track is about a 15 minute job so we lost about an hour that day fixing the machine.
On a construction job I was working at the knockoff chop saw died, so my boss got a new Makita one that set him back by $1000, and the jumping jack/trench compactor died so he had to rent one to finish the day/job (probably around another $1000 when it was all said and done).
I was given two days to throw together a cs milling setup, and one of those days I was at work.
And I'm not even going to start on last year....

 

[Stihl99]

Dang WS I am sorry to read all of that

 

[RedneckChainsawRepair]

Yep just a day of having at it. Why you own more then one tool of everything.

 

[Huntaholic]

You need to use your stuff more. That sounds like an above average week for me. If you use these things, they are going to break. Last week, I swapped out 2 clutches, 1 bar, 3 chains, and had another saw "blow up". I haven't tore into the "blow up" yet, I try to keep at least 6 saws in the rotation so its not super pressing right now to fix it. Curiosity will get the better of me soon though. Saw popped, died, and lost all compression. Im HOPING the cylinder is still good but I suspect a broken ring at least.

 

[sean donato]

Good lord, I have great luck by any standards with the crap luck you guys have. Worst I've had in a day, was having to get fell and limb with my 380xp because my 359 broke a fuel line out in the woods. Well the winch brake half broke on that job too, but that was an easy fix after I got back home.