Got a chainsaw that was sitting 20+ years running

[FusilliJerry82]

A friend of mine was going to throw out a chainsaw that belonged to his father, who died in I believe 1987 or 88. I can't imagine its been run since then. He said I could have it so I snagged it and didn't do anything with it for a while.

It's a Dayton 2Z461 (Poulan 361 clone) which were last made in 1975. I fiddled with it a bit a few days later. It has gobs of compression and was tough to pull. Though I know I shouldn't have, I left the 1/5 of a tank of 20+ year old mix in and filled it with fresh mix. Then I filled the chain oil up with a few partial bottles of Stihl bar and chain oil my dad had lying around. Then I sprayed the carb out with carb cleaner to find that it would in fact start on carb cleaner. I couldn't get it to stay running, so I left it. Today I decided to try again. I noticed there was no fuel in the fuel line to the carb. So I took it off and sprayed down the carb and down the fuel line. After that and some priming with more carb cleaner, it started right up. I was absolutely amazed. Again, this had been sitting in a dank garage with no storage preparation and a good bit of decades old gas!

I'm extremely happy, now I have a nice old chainsaw. Only downside is it has the original 17" bar and chain which as far as I can tell they don't make chains for anymore. Apparently these take an aftermarket 24" bar happily, so that'll probably be my course of action when I need a new chain.

 

[gathermewool]

That's a pretty neat find, and lucky!

 

[greenaccord02]

Very nice!

 

[660mag]

Congrats on the saw.
If you take your chain to a Stihl dealer they will build you a chain that will fit your saw perfectly. No problem. Just make sure you take your chain with you, and of course assuming the currant chain on your saw is correct.

 

[dwendt44]

I've got an old Poulan that's sat over 30 years since it ran last. Haven't had a use for it.

Never ran well to begin with. I could get it to run at high speed ok but then it wouldn't idle. When I got it to idle ok, it wouldn't run at high speed.
Bad carb I guess. Put it away and haven't messed with it since.
I may play around with it some day as I'm retired now.

 

[FusilliJerry82]

Well now; I can't seem to be able to keep it running for longer than 10-15 seconds. It seems to be extremely sensitive to the position of the choke after its warmed up a bit with the choke full out. It doesn't want it to be full in/off but won't stay running for more than a couple seconds full out/on. I put a new spark plug in it which seems to have made it a bit easier for it to start but isn't helping in terms of longevity. Also, this is with the air filter off to eliminate that possibility.

Thoughts?

 

[boraticus]

The fuel system should have been purged and cleaned. Particularly the fuel tank/line/filter. If some gunk made it's way to the carb, it could be messing things up. Chainsaws use diaphragm carbs which can be very finicky if contaminated fuel gets into them. Suggest you pull the carb and buy a $10.00 carb kit for it. If you decide to do the work yourself, be very observant regarding how it comes apart (take digital pics) and watch for very tiny springs, check valves and/or needle valves. The carb is probably either a Tillotson or a Walbro. Kits should be readily available.

 

[660mag]

Got to love those crunchy diaphragms.

Along with the kit you'll want to replace the fuel lines, and fuel filter. They cant be in good shape after all this time.

 

[FusilliJerry82]

Rebuilt the carb, same issue; won't stay running. Its like its not getting fuel fast enough.

 

[boraticus]

The carburetor diaphragm is actuated by vacuum pulses from the engine. Some carbs simply have a small hole on the face of the mounting surface that matches a similar hole on the engine. The carburetor gasket also has a small hole that allows the two holes to match up. Make sure all three holes are clear of dirt and lined up correctly.

Other carbs have a small nipple on them with a little piece of plastic tubing that attaches to another nipple on the engine. When the two nipples are connected, that provides the vacuum to actuate the diaphragm.

If all of the components of the carb are correctly assembled, actuating passages clear and free and properly connected and you have fuel getting to the carb, it should fire and run.

Another thing to check is the spark plug. Try a new one just in case the existing one is defective. It's a long shot but not impossible.

I was tuning an old Yamaha RD a few days ago and was getting very inconsistent performance. Pulled, cleaned and adjusted the carbs a couple times with no change. Switched over to the electrics and found one spark plug that would only work intermittently. Major pain in the a$$ to diagnose. It would always fire outside of the cylinder but occasionally not inside??? The only way I knew this was happening was by using an infrared thermometer to read the temperature of the exhaust header with the engine running on one cylinder and confirming it with a wet plug.

Always have a spare spark plug that's known to be good when diagnosing engine problems. It can save a great deal of time.