I've been given a chainsaw...Help me

[Dennis_Peacock]

A guy at work asked me to stop by his house tonight on my way home. My two younger boys have been wanting to "tinker" with small engines and I stopped by my co-workers house and he gave me 1 chainsaw and 3 weedeaters.

The chainsaw looks almost new. Said it doesn't run though. It's a McColluh MS1434NAV and with what looks like a brand new 14" bar and chain. The overall saw looks really good and hardly used from all initial appearances. I haven't checked it out yet, but have gotten home and just finished up a bite of supper.

The three weedeaters are in very good shape....but none of them run either.
1. John Deere straight shaft (260G).
2. Ryobi Curved shaft (31cc 15")
3. Ryobi straight shaft with attachments (31cc 18").

Now...since I'm only decent at 4-cycle engine repair and never even tried 2-cycle engine repair....I'd like to take the weedeaters and teach my boys 11 & 13 how to work on small engines and teach them a bit about mechanican on stuff. I want to fix up the chainsaw and use it in my woodcutting for annual firewood IF...this is a decent chainsaw to use.

Where do I find info about 2-cycle engine repair/troubleshooting? I know it can't be as complicated as a 4-cycle engine...but I could be wrong.

Advice and pointers welcomed.

 

[cjcocn]

My bet is that if you clean the carbs out and replace fuel lines and fuel filters, that you'd have all 4 machines running in no time flat.

There are a lot of threads on this forum that you can find via a search. They contain a lot of useful info and will provide hours of reading.

For those weed eaters you can do a search on small engines and you will find quite a few forums that deal with those.

Also, there are some 2-cycle books out there that will come in handy.

 

[litefoot]

Good for you! This is where I started with my boys...and myself.

http://www.dolmarpowerproducts.com/know_how/training_material/

The 2-stroke animation and explanation is excellent!

 

[Evanrude]

There is a ton of info on this site for you. Any questions you cant get answered, just post it up and I'm sure people will have an answer to it, chainsaw or not. Like cjcocn said, probably just some simple maintenance and they'll be back up and running.

 

[BobL]

RE: I've been given a chainsaw...Help me.

yes you will need help - now that the collection has started you will be subsumed by it!

Post away . . . . .

 

[mountainlake]

It's not a good place to teach on a newer Mac or Poulan saw, even a good mechanic has trouble trying to make one of those things run decent. Might be kind of frustrating for someone learning. Steve

 

[Dennis_Peacock]

Thanks for the advice thus far.

Steve...It's all I can find around here at this point. I'll see if I can take a few pics tonight and post them here. It's kinda hard to "drive blind" ya know.