Chain won't turn. Wife says "Fix it!"

[Van_]

Stihl 034. It runs fine but the chain stopped turning. That was last fall but most of the wood was cut, so no problem. Well, the blizzard brought down a big one but in a good spot so I said fine, let it lay. But wife says No, it's got to go - NOW! Ruins her view I guess, though not mine, but that doesn't matter.

The "Front hand guard" position makes no difference.

Yesterday I took the chain & blade off & the small plate underneath. Everything looked okay. I figured this afternoon I'll remove the "chain sprocket cover" and see what it looks like, but first I wanted to check with you guys to see if I'm going in the right direction - before I take something apart that will spring into my face, or with parts I won't know how to put back together.

I was looking at those pics of lovely wives cutting wood. My wife is lovely but I don't think I could get her to cut up a tree. How do you get them to do that - and cook dinner, wash the dishes, etc.?

 

[bgadway]

Does the clutch spin freely ? if so maybe you blew the tip in your bar. there are many possible thing that could be wrong. then same thing happened to my 362 husky and it turned out that the clutch side of my crank broke off outside the case. maybe thats something you should look at.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>OR MAYBE TELL YOU WIFE THAT IT IS UNFIXABLE AND BUY A NEW, BIGGER,FASTER,LOUDER,MORE POWERFUL SAW THAT YOU REALLY DON'T NEED BUT REALLY WANT..........JUST MY .02 CENTS.......................

 

[fishhuntcutwood]

The "Front hand guard" position makes no difference.

Sounds like it could be a chain brake issue. The hand guard is what operates the chainbrake. If the position makes no difference, it sounds as though the linkage has bound up and broken in the brake "on" position. This would allow the saw to run, but chain not turn. Now, this may sound stupid, but have you pulled hard enough on the hand guard? Pull back towards the handlebar, and see if it pops. The hand guard should be able to be pulled all the way back to the handlebar. This would be the "off" position. There's a detent that keeps it from slopping back and forth, but there is a little bit of play in either position that could make you think it's moving freely throughout it's normal range. That's the easiest thing to check.

Jeff

 

[Van_]

I found it! The part is not called a "chain sprocket cover" which was my guess. It is a "clutch drum" according to the local repair shop's secretary and the Stihl web site that they could get to but I couldn't back home. She did her best since he was in and out and of the "Leave me the h*ll alone" attitude, but he finely volunteered that the 1125 they had on hand could not replace the 1128 and it would have to be ordered. They will call me when it comes in.

First, the chain would move freely by hand, regardless. If I jerked back hard on the chain brake then it would cut into the bark a tad, but not too deep.

This time I opened it up outside in the sunlight which was a good thing because my eye caught the gleem of bare metal between the gear like part (sprocket?) that the chain wraps around and the drum. Where the clutch drum had been one unit, now it was two parts. The teeth were also gouged some. After 12 or so years of use, I guess that’s not too bad.

Thank you Bgadway and Jeff for your guidance.