Little brother is starting to get on my nerves. Called yesterday and said his saw wasnt cutting right and would I sharpen it. Now, growing up, he filed and cut just as much wood as I did, no reason he couldnt file it himself. I said bring it over, I was expecting to find a chain filed everywhich way and rocked to death, but it wasnt to bad. I put the 3in one sthil file to it and in a few minutes it looked pretty good. Today, he called and said it was cutting strings in some bradford pair, but he didnt think it was getting enough oil. I told him how to adjust the oiler. Little later he called again, said the saw quit cutting and the chain was smokeing and he didnt think the oiler was still not putting out enough oil. Well to heck with trying to diagnose a saw over the phone, so I said bring it over. Well when he got here the bar was still hot to the touch, so hot the bar had turned blue, the teeth on the chain had rolled over and curled up. I aint talking blue at the edge of the rails, the entire bar was blue. Never seen anything like it. My 346 was setting there so I took the bar and chain off it to put on his saw. While we had the side plate off, I took some brake kleen and cleaned all around the oil pump and clutch area. We fiddled with the oiler and turned it all the way up and it wasnt hardly putting out any oil, turned it all the way down and still no oil, put it in the middle and finally got it to sling a little oil. I am thinking oil pump probably worn out or stopped up. Took saw out behind the shop where I had pushed down a 8in sourwood and started cutting a few rounds. Saw ran great and after bucking about half the tree, the chain looked oily and wasnt hot, so I sent him home. Well he called again a little while ago, claims the saw just quit cutting again and the chain was rideing up at the clutch and base of the bar. Now unless the bar came loose, only thing I can think of would be a worn sprocket, possibly wrong size, but I replaced his blue bar and chain which said .325, with my old bar, that also said .325, bar and chain, but I didnt check the sprocket on the saw. We dont know anything about the saw except its a 353 husky that his soninlaw gave him, and this is the first time he has tried to use it. I told him to bring it over tomorrow and I would check the sprocket and take one off one of my clunkers to get it running.
Only good news out of this is I was digging in my surplus pile and found a 350 I had forgot about having, this should make a good donor saw for his 353, and I found a complete 55 rancher I had forgot about. This was a experimental saw I had rebuilt with new seals and bearings and a chinese topend I had milled the base down on. Saw didnt run worth a flip and I had just set it aside and forgot about it. So it looks like I will be digging out a old cyl and putting that saw back to stock.
