Hello everyone. In case some of you read my post from a few weeks ago...I had lost a shindaiwa 490 and a makita 6401 out of the back of my truck on a major highway. 6 days later after putting out signs and checking craigs list and police departments I got a phone call from a guy letting me know he had seen my signs and had my saws! Talk about making a guys day! I met with him that night and gave him a $100 dollar reward for what would have been a thousand dollars worth of new saws, cases, bar oil, plugs, plug wrenches, extra chains and files. Both saw came out of the back of my dodge onto the highway and suffered absolutely no damage what so ever. This is in part due to both saws being in cases and having the bar/chain covers on them.
Anyways...I "think" there was past confusion on the question if a dolmar/makita 6400+ would fit in a standard chainsaw box. The answer is yes, but not without a little carving. The box I used for my makita 6401 is a shindaiwa box. The exact same size that came with my 490. This box "I believe" is used for husqvarnas and echos and probably unbranded boxes that employ this same design. I don't have time to do any step by step pics or draw out the modifications I made via 4 inch grinder and razor knife, but I think you should get the idea from the pics. The boxes are double walled and only one of the walls needs to be modified. The chain brake does need to be activated or pushed forward to properly fit. The pics show my saw before the h.d. filter, but it still fits with the h.d. filter/cover installed. I believe if I did this correctly there will be 4 pics of the mods on this post and I will shoot one more post with the saw in the box. The other mods I need to make are scribing my name and number into the boxes (wish I would have done that before they came out of my truck and took 30 years off of my life) and to make some mods to properly hold screnches, plugs, files etc etc. I don't lock the boxes and usually put a scrench through the lock hole in order to keep a scrench handy. Hopefully this isn't redundant and helps a few guys out there.
Buck
P.S. Thanks to everyone who posted their sympathy and generous offers to help me out during my 6 day long chrisis. Also thanks for the wealth of info on mods to all saws, but especially the makita/dolmars. I have the 7900 p&c in my garage awaiting a port job by myself. I'm still trying to make sure I have all necessary info gathered before I start filing and grinding.