FishinRod, glad to hear we have another saw junkie on here.
I rarely buy a saw new, and never buy a used one. Why not? Because nearly everywhere I go, when people find out I love and work on saws, they pull one or two out and say, "Would you like this? I can't start it.Or, it won't keep running." etc.
Just last weekend we drove all the way to Tucson to pick up an Australian shepherd rescue.The rescue dad gave me a perfectly good Echo 340 climbing saw that wouldn't start. Turns out the location of the fuel tank and the bar oil tank are reversed on that model. So, of course, he accidentally filled the fuel tank with oil and vice versa. Easy enough mistake. Even with 52 years experience making money running chainsaws, I nearly did the same. I caught the little chain link icon on the side of the saw by the filler cap at the last minute.
Years ago in my timber felling days in Oregon and Idaho, I would invariably have a new saw hopped up, including porting, timing advance, gutting and dual porting the muffler, shaving the piston's skirt, etc. Any saw I get these days gets the muffler opened up, the adjustment limiters changed or removed from the carb, the cylinder gasket removed, the rpm limited ignition coil swapped out, maybe something else if necessary. I don't even consider the warranty. The boost in performance is so noticeable and immediate that trudging through the interminable warranty period would be...BORING!
I've turned my 3 Echo saws, a 271, a 400, and the 340, into much more than they were when new. They run cooler and last longer with these mods. I'd be more than glad to discuss at length the improvements I've seen on many, many Stihls, Husqvarnas, Makita/Dolmar, Hitachi, the Echos, Jonsereds, and junky saws I won't name.
The Chainsaw forum on arboristsite.com is a fascinating source of info, opinion, argument, bias, and more about trees, saws, logging, on and on. It is not run so politely as is this PondBoss forum, but doesn't digress into despicable behavior as do some sites. BTW, esshup is on there.
When cutting those over sized, wet logs, try pulling your bar out of the cut every 30 seconds or so, rev it momentarily to get a little more bar oil on the chain, then resume cutting. That reminds me of belling big skanky cottonwoods and Siberian elms that have water running out of the initial felling cut. And, we were felling a stand of 4' to 5' diameter white firs in Oregon some years ago. Our first cut had to be partially made, then the saw bar pulled out while up to 10 gallons of liquid drained from that cut. If the sawyer didn't wait for the drainage, he'd be soaking wet from the waist on down. Those big white fir culls weren't called piss firs for nothing!
And, thanks for the thread hijack! HAHAHA!
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