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!

 

[pioneerguy600]

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!

At a bare minimum, here in NS there is moisture problems that rust steel components and mag rot sets in in just a few years of sitting.

 

[pioneerguy600]

Every bit of the carb linkage would need to be looked at to see if it is stuck and could use a bit of oil, the carb butterfly shaft would need to move freely and some lube wouldn`t hurt, any pivot points should be examined, those old saws had plenty of slop in their linkages so it would likely be something very simple to find, not like the sheathed cable linkages on some modern saws.