McCulloch 39, no throttle response , help?

[Chainsaw Collectors]

I recently got a McCulloch 39 that sat many years. I cleaned the fuel tank which had old fuel in it. Gave it a drink down and it fired up and idled a little. The next day(today) I gassed it up with 32:1 which I’m told will be fine with modern quality 2 stroke oil and it fired up on its own 5th pull and would idle then die, longest idle was 8 seconds, a few times. An hour later I go back out and it’s slowly fixing itself as it now idles just fine for as long as I want it to. The throttle trigger doesn’t have much wiggle tho and it does nothing. I don’t see anything broken or missing, but then again I don’t have much experience with this series of McCulloch saws yet. Any ideas? I applied some WD40 to the linkages but that did nothing.

 

[Yukon Stihl]

Add a good dose of Seafoam to the gas and keep running it

 

[holeycow]

Yup, first and easiest worth-a-try.

 

[MacAttack]

It amazes me when an old saw that's been sitting for years gets some fresh gas and starts running again without a carb rebuild. I don't even attempt to start an old saw until I've gone through the carb with gaskets and diaphragms. And then half the time SOB still won't run at first!