Pioneer chainsaws

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Alittle earlier this summer there was next to no traffic on here, it`s picked up a bit recently. :rock:
Pioneerguy600

It had been awhile since I've seen a Pioneer around here. I went to a flea market in another county and saw one there, cheap, so I picked it up. That's what stirred my interest in this section, trying to get the 1200 to roar back to life after years of sitting idle.
 
Never Noticed!

Has anyone else noticed that this thread has been made a STICKY ?
Pioneerguy600
Never noticed it all Jerry!Guess that's good news for us Pioneer Fans!
Thanks to all of you that have been handing out all the valuable information over the couple of years this has thread has been rolling along!
Us newbies will never stop asking questions eithere,LOL!
Lawrence
 
Check ebay

There's a Pioneer up for sale on ebay,you guy's in the USA might want to check it out! I will post it in the appropriate thread
Lawrence
 
Hey all ... I'm a noob here ... found a ref to 'Pioneer 21-inch chainsaw 16:1' on Google that brought me here ... what a great find this site / sticky thread is /are!
I had been concerned about leaning out my gas / oil mix - I was told by local shops that St-hl's latest (air-cooled) two-stroke chainsaw motor oil could be used as lean as 50:1 in my old Pioneer Holiday 1100W (white with red 'Pioneer' circles on sides), the fuel cap of which clearly states: '16-1 GAS OIL MIX'. I went with a 24:1 mix just to play it a little safer. I hadn't even considered the absence of lead in modern fuels (wouldn't that be more of an exhaust valve seat lubrication issue in older, conventional four-stroke motors?)
The discussion on page 8 of this thread (posts 109 & 110) between petesoldsaw and pioneerguy600 (Jerry Myers) put my mind much more at ease ... thanks for that, eh?
As this sticky thread has grown to 248 pages, could someone suggest the appropriate search terms to zero-in on tuning procedures - specifically the L(ow), H(igh) and idle speed settings for my saw? I remember being told to start with one (High?) or the other and have so far been frustrated in my attempts to get the saw to idle reliably (no chain spin) and still rev up strong to full ear-splitting throttle from idle without stalling.
I have downloaded many of cjcocn's files from the MediaFire link - what an excellent resource! Thanks again for all the help.
Kevin
 
Hey all ... I'm a noob here ... found a ref to 'Pioneer 21-inch chainsaw 16:1' on Google that brought me here ... what a great find this site / sticky thread is /are!
I had been concerned about leaning out my gas / oil mix - I was told by local shops that St-hl's latest (air-cooled) two-stroke chainsaw motor oil could be used as lean as 50:1 in my old Pioneer Holiday 1100W (white with red 'Pioneer' circles on sides), the fuel cap of which clearly states: '16-1 GAS OIL MIX'. I went with a 24:1 mix just to play it a little safer. I hadn't even considered the absence of lead in modern fuels (wouldn't that be more of an exhaust valve seat lubrication issue in older, conventional four-stroke motors?)
The discussion on page 8 of this thread (posts 109 & 110) between petesoldsaw and pioneerguy600 (Jerry Myers) put my mind much more at ease ... thanks for that, eh?
As this sticky thread has grown to 248 pages, could someone suggest the appropriate search terms to zero-in on tuning procedures - specifically the L(ow), H(igh) and idle speed settings for my saw? I remember being told to start with one (High?) or the other and have so far been frustrated in my attempts to get the saw to idle reliably (no chain spin) and still rev up strong to full ear-splitting throttle from idle without stalling.
I have downloaded many of cjcocn's files from the MediaFire link - what an excellent resource! Thanks again for all the help.
Kevin
I've got about 40 chainsaws and not many of them (if any) will do what you want to do, idle for a long time without stalling then go to full revs without missing a beat, then back to idle. Chainsaws are a finicky thing to keep running like that, but we do the best we can. Welcome to AS!
 
Hey all ... I'm a noob here ... found a ref to 'Pioneer 21-inch chainsaw 16:1' on Google that brought me here ... what a great find this site / sticky thread is /are!
I had been concerned about leaning out my gas / oil mix - I was told by local shops that St-hl's latest (air-cooled) two-stroke chainsaw motor oil could be used as lean as 50:1 in my old Pioneer Holiday 1100W (white with red 'Pioneer' circles on sides), the fuel cap of which clearly states: '16-1 GAS OIL MIX'. I went with a 24:1 mix just to play it a little safer. I hadn't even considered the absence of lead in modern fuels (wouldn't that be more of an exhaust valve seat lubrication issue in older, conventional four-stroke motors?)
The discussion on page 8 of this thread (posts 109 & 110) between petesoldsaw and pioneerguy600 (Jerry Myers) put my mind much more at ease ... thanks for that, eh?
As this sticky thread has grown to 248 pages, could someone suggest the appropriate search terms to zero-in on tuning procedures - specifically the L(ow), H(igh) and idle speed settings for my saw? I remember being told to start with one (High?) or the other and have so far been frustrated in my attempts to get the saw to idle reliably (no chain spin) and still rev up strong to full ear-splitting throttle from idle without stalling.
I have downloaded many of cjcocn's files from the MediaFire link - what an excellent resource! Thanks again for all the help.
Kevin

Welcome to the site, if you have questions concerning Pioneer chainsaws this is the best place to post them as there are some very knowledgeable fellows on this forum.
You are absolutely safe running your vintage chainsaws on a 40:1 mix of reg. pump gas and a high quality mixing oil. I have been running my collection of vintage saws on this mix now for 4-5 years and they are cleaner now than ever before and the lubrication of the modern oils is more than sufficient to keep them running for many years to come.
Tuning of the Pioneer saws is not hard but there is differences between the models. If you are refering to the 1100 you mentioned above then they used a Tillotson HS carb that has initial settings of 1 1/8 open for the H and 1 1/2 for the L . To get the saw to idle you need to turn the throttle stop screw to open up the throttle [ increases engine RPM`s ] or turn the screw to close [ drops engine RPM`s].
Does your saw have the felt wick in the tank? These sometimes go bad and cause a lean condition to occour as not enough fuel can get to the carb. They also have a habit of breaking down and the felt disintegrates, these fibers get sucked into the carb and block the fine screen on the fuel inlet side of the carb.
Pioneerguy600
 
Thanks guys ... thanks for the welcome wagon ...

a. palmer jr. ... your experience and comment vis-a-vis "finicky thing(s)" makes a lot of sense to me ... I have never got this one to both idle and rev strong for long ... I guess as long as it will start and rev good & strong hot, then it will do its' job. I've worn myself out more than once trying to start that 1100W after monkeying with the L & H jets ... I may experiment a little more starting from Pioneerguy600's pre-sets ... the advice about the felt wick in the tank is not lost on me ... the felt-covering of the pickup and the thin liner on the underside of the filler cap disintegrated some time ago so I simply removed the pickup from the end of the fuel line and cleaned any crap out of the tank as best I could ... the last time I went to use the saw in May, it refused to start and later I realized I wasn't seeing or getting any fuel feed, so, the other day, I just blew air through the pick-up end of the fuel line - right through the carb - and that seemed to cure that issue - hopefully I haven't blown a hole through the fine screen on the fuel inlet side of the carb. K
 
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Thanks guys ... thanks for the welcome wagon ...

a. palmer jr. ... your experience and comment vis-a-vis "finicky thing(s)" makes a lot of sense to me ... I have never got this one to both idle and rev strong for long ... I guess as long as it will start and rev good & strong hot, then it will do its' job. I've worn myself out more than once trying to start that 1100W after monkeying with the L & H jets ... I may experiment a little more starting from Pioneerguy600's pre-sets ... the advice about the felt wick in the tank is not lost on me ... the felt-covering of the pickup and the thin liner on the underside of the filler cap disintegrated some time ago so I simply removed the pickup from the end of the fuel line and cleaned any crap out of the tank as best I could ... the last time I went to use the saw in May, it refused to start and later I realized I wasn't seeing or getting any fuel feed, so, the other day, I just blew air through the pick-up end of the fuel line - right through the carb - and that seemed to cure that issue - hopefully I haven't blown a hole through the fine screen on the fuel inlet side of the carb. K

That HS carb is really simple to service and by this age it could likely use a cleaning and kit installed. My vintage saws will run and idle until they run out of fuel, they also start very easily. In most intances if an old saw has good compression and spark then the fuel system is the reason they are problamatic. That includes the filters, fuel line and carb, they need to be in a1 shape for a saw to start,run, idle and cut properly.
To check your screen just remove the four screws on the fuel inlet side of the carb, pull the cover,gasket and fuel pump diaphragm off and the inlet filter screen is in a hole/bore in the aluminum carb body. A small straw or a can of compressed air will clean out that screen quickly. Couldn`t tell you how many times I cleaned out one in the woods on the old felt wick pickup style saws. LOL
Pioneerguy600
 
Words of wisdom from Jerry. Most idling problems I've ever seen have been caused by a dirty carb except for the small P-series sith the single screw. Those run poorly because the they were designed by the devil himself. Put on a new carb, however, and they run like a top.
 
There are several variables to keeping a saw running good, the quality of oil and gas, the age of the gas used, how the saw is stored, humidity has a lot to do with performance using ethanol, the aformentioned tuning of the carb, the general condition of engine, compression, vacuum leaks, ignition. In general what I'm trying to say is that nobody can buy a new saw, keep it for fifty years and run it with perfect performance every time. Saws, like other devices built by man require a little upkeep and tweaking from time to time. Chainsaws don't run good by accident!
 
I do think that the older saws, if in good condition, are going to be easier to tune and work on than some of the newer "environmental friendly" lean burn saws. I think these were probably government mandated and you know how the government does everything else! (I meant the U.S. government)
 
finally got my P61 to go again

It was bad/stale fuel? I dont know what the problem was with it? Made a new batch of fuel up and away it went?
First time thats ever happened,
At least the carbs clean new plug and pullstar cord
I will go play with it now mmmm
 
I do think that the older saws, if in good condition, are going to be easier to tune and work on than some of the newer "environmental friendly" lean burn saws. I think these were probably government mandated and you know how the government does everything else! (I meant the U.S. government)

Better than Corporate America can do most things, anyway... But I digress.

The problem is that the EPA as I understand it is not really government, much like the Federal Reserve; they operate on behalf of them but don't seem to directly answer to them (or anybody, by the looks of it). And since they all want to keep their jobs, they have to keep continually nit-picking and looking for new regulations to put in place to stay busy.

I do agree with you that the old saws I have that are in excellent mechanical condition run more smoothly and are easier to tune than the newer ones, though. But as Jerry said, the key is the condition. Though, my old RA needs rings and is quite low on compression, but still starts and runs fine; just doesn't produce as much power as it should anymore. The old guy I get parts from told me that back in the day when he worked in the bush, those old, slow, large-displacement saws would just keep plodding along even with under 100 PSI compression.
 
It was bad/stale fuel? I dont know what the problem was with it? Made a new batch of fuel up and away it went?
First time thats ever happened,
At least the carbs clean new plug and pullstar cord
I will go play with it now mmmm

Glad to hear you got it going Dave. :cheers:
 

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