McCulloch Chain Saws

Arborist Forum

Help Support Arborist Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Hello again everyone. So, while I've managed to avoid the coronavirus without any trouble, I'm afraid I may have caught a much more serious disease: The Vintage Saw Bug
An ad popped up about a mile away from me for these two old beasts. Ad said that they both ran several years ago until they were put away in a barn where they've sat since then and are now seized.
Normally I wouldn't be interested past that point, but since I've been getting into learning 2 stroke small engine stuff I figured these could be a learning opportunity to dig into and discover why they're seized, and if there's any possibility of them running again. It was only $50 for both saws, I figured at that price even if they're boat anchors at this point there are probably parts from both of these someone may need for their own saws.
Plus I just think they look cool... Thought the Mac would look cool sitting next to my grandfathers 250 and 39 on a shelf somewhere, even if it doesn't run.

As for the saws themselves, here's some photos. I don't know what the Mac is as I couldn't find any markings on it yet.
OldMac.jpg
Saw appears relatively good, there's some surface rust on spots but that should clean up easy enough. Oil tank was still full of oil and still pumps. Top part of fuel tank is rusty.
Rot.jpg
Worst issue on the outside is this big chunk of rot underneath the flywheel. This is magnesium rot, right? It doesn't look like its in too critical of a spot, can I just grind back to clean metal and create a makeshift patch out of something?
Advice about what to do with this kind of issue would be greatly appreciated.
SparkPlug.jpg
One of the first things I did was pull the spark plug to see if the inside of the piston/cylinder was all rusted up or something. Thankfully from what I was able to see it looks surprisingly good in there. I couldn't see much since the piston is near the top of the cylinder, but I didn't see any obvious rust or scratches/gouging. Spark plug still had a thin coating of oil on it. Either way I poured a little mystery oil in there to hopefully soak in and help lubricate things once again.
MacBar.jpg
The McCulloch bar that came with it. Still looks pretty serviceable with a little light surface rust cleanup.

Going to throw in some pictures of the other saw too for good measure. It also has some rot happening on the bottom of the saw, but it doesn't look nearly as bad as the Mac.
700D-1.jpg
700D-2.jpg
700D-Rot.jpg
 
Now here's another 10-10 that I finished today.This saw I put a chip in because no matter what I did I couldn't get the points & condenser to produce spark.I put a new fuel line on only because when I went to remove the line from the carb to put a new tank gasket in the line broke.Luckily I just happened to have one laying around.I put a new tank gasket in using square O ring material (thanks Brian Thacker!).I changed out the top tank half a while back to get away from the domed air filter,but then had a problem getting the air filter bracket to line up with the new PM iar filter cover.So what I ended up doing was drilling a new hole at the back end of the bracket about 1/4 in.behind the existing stud.I then found a small bolt that fit in the air filter knob & put a nut on the bottom to take up some of the excess length.Then I put a nut on top to hold it in place.All was well & fine until I put the bracket on the carb.The head of the bolt pushed against the metering cover & tilted it forward just enough so the air filter knob wouldn't screw onto the new stud.I fixed this by bending the bracket arms in a vise (carefully) & then put 2 thin washers under each side of the bracket.Not quite a perfect fit,but the knob screwed onto the stud & tightened it down enough to keep foreign material out.thumbnail.jpgI put new bar plates on & a nice used Oregon 16 in.bar & chain (Stihl I think,has a #3 imprinted on DL)The Yamabond won't be fully cured till around noon tomorrow.This is a nice running saw,can't wait to sink it into some wood.

thumbnail.jpg

thumbnail.jpg
 
Now here's another 10-10 that I finished today.This saw I put a chip in because no matter what I did I couldn't get the points & condenser to produce spark.I put a new fuel line on only because when I went to remove the line from the carb to put a new tank gasket in the line broke.Luckily I just happened to have one laying around.I put a new tank gasket in using square O ring material (thanks Brian Thacker!).I changed out the top tank half a while back to get away from the domed air filter,but then had a problem getting the air filter bracket to line up with the new PM iar filter cover.So what I ended up doing was drilling a new hole at the back end of the bracket about 1/4 in.behind the existing stud.I then found a small bolt that fit in the air filter knob & put a nut on the bottom to take up some of the excess length.Then I put a nut on top to hold it in place.All was well & fine until I put the bracket on the carb.The head of the bolt pushed against the metering cover & tilted it forward just enough so the air filter knob wouldn't screw onto the new stud.I fixed this by bending the bracket arms in a vise (carefully) & then put 2 thin washers under each side of the bracket.Not quite a perfect fit,but the knob screwed onto the stud & tightened it down enough to keep foreign material out.View attachment 857519I put new bar plates on & a nice used Oregon 16 in.bar & chain (Stihl I think,has a #3 imprinted on DL)The Yamabond won't be fully cured till around noon tomorrow.This is a nice running saw,can't wait to sink it into some wood.

View attachment 857511

View attachment 857512
Your making my OCD flare up with that air cleaner Ed. I think I might have the right one (anti-spitback) ,pm me your adress and I'll mail it to you.
Then I'll sleep better.
 
Replace the oil line from the tank to the pump while you're at it as they will fail at the same time as the fuel lines. Might as well replace the purge/primer too since it will also fail.

Mac Cat 18. There were 32, 35, and 38 cc versions of these saws. The 38 were normally anti-vibe saws with spring mounts.

Mark
 
It's dead, isn't it? Big gouges on the exhaust side and the mystery oil hasn't helped its seized state at all.
I think I'm going to cut my losses on this one and check out the Homelite. Hopefully that one still has some life left in it.
DeadMac2.jpg
DeadMac1.jpg
 
It's dead, isn't it? Big gouges on the exhaust side and the mystery oil hasn't helped its seized state at all.
I think I'm going to cut my losses on this one and check out the Homelite. Hopefully that one still has some life left in it.
View attachment 857974
View attachment 857973
Just keep in mind that the bore is cast iron so it's probably fine ,just a piston replacement.
 
The last 10-10 that I put so much time into is basically a pile of doo-doo.I got it fired up (the tank seal doesn't leak) & tried to put it into a cut.It acts like the plug is bad,but then it'll take right off.If I shut it off & try to restart it about 5 min.later I have to give it a prime to get it going again.I believe it's in need of crank seals.So I guess it gets turned into a parts saw.
 
The last 10-10 that I put so much time into is basically a pile of doo-doo.I got it fired up (the tank seal doesn't leak) & tried to put it into a cut.It acts like the plug is bad,but then it'll take right off.If I shut it off & try to restart it about 5 min.later I have to give it a prime to get it going again.I believe it's in need of crank seals.So I guess it gets turned into a parts saw.
Not hard or expensive to do crank seals and really a necessity on any saw this old IMO.

Sent from my SM-G981U using Tapatalk
 
Back
Top