Sam R
8mm Socket
I got the opportunity to do a clutch swap for a customer on a Super XL this week - he wanted a tune up done to it too.
The clutch came off with a couple tapered punches in the mounting holes and a big screwdriver - not a big deal. I thought hey this is an antique I'm gonna clean it up a bit in addition to this tune up and clutch change.
It was a really dirty, grimy saw - the customer had clearly been using it with a dull chain as evidenced by the dust-like sawdust all over it, and it had what looked like an aftermarket air filter on it that didn't quite fit the mount so there was crud all over the underside & carburetor. Managed to bend the mounting bolt mount a bit to get a tighter fit. Cleaned the rewind housing, bar cover and external case/cylinder mount with compressed air, mineral spirits & grit. Restrung the rewind and lubed the spring. New plug & fuel filter. Did some other cursory testing like checking that the fuel line was in good shape and optimistically or naively thinking there might be a spark arrester to clean. Inspected the p&c for distressing signs. Sharpened the chain.
And let me tell you good folks, this saw after all that the saw fired right up at about half a pull! Tuned the carb just a bit; it was wanting to run at about 6800 WOT but idled just fine and had good throttle response. Loaded it up w/ 32:1 and called the customer up.
How the heck are Homelite not industry leaders if they're turning out saws that can be beat to hell for 40 years and still run like this! Some of the old Stihl's are pretty tough but it seems like they're always cantankerous to get running right if they've developed problems.
The clutch came off with a couple tapered punches in the mounting holes and a big screwdriver - not a big deal. I thought hey this is an antique I'm gonna clean it up a bit in addition to this tune up and clutch change.
It was a really dirty, grimy saw - the customer had clearly been using it with a dull chain as evidenced by the dust-like sawdust all over it, and it had what looked like an aftermarket air filter on it that didn't quite fit the mount so there was crud all over the underside & carburetor. Managed to bend the mounting bolt mount a bit to get a tighter fit. Cleaned the rewind housing, bar cover and external case/cylinder mount with compressed air, mineral spirits & grit. Restrung the rewind and lubed the spring. New plug & fuel filter. Did some other cursory testing like checking that the fuel line was in good shape and optimistically or naively thinking there might be a spark arrester to clean. Inspected the p&c for distressing signs. Sharpened the chain.
And let me tell you good folks, this saw after all that the saw fired right up at about half a pull! Tuned the carb just a bit; it was wanting to run at about 6800 WOT but idled just fine and had good throttle response. Loaded it up w/ 32:1 and called the customer up.
How the heck are Homelite not industry leaders if they're turning out saws that can be beat to hell for 40 years and still run like this! Some of the old Stihl's are pretty tough but it seems like they're always cantankerous to get running right if they've developed problems.
