Pioneer chainsaws

[Squareground3691]

New to AS.

Bought an old hermit's property and found this old P20. The old man was not a small-engine maintainer so a lot of 'dead' pile had fairly simple problems. This P20 had a cracked fuel pickup line and was sucking air. Put in a new line, cleaned out the fuel tank, and it fired right up on the first pull, ran solid on the second pull and chewed through a decent sized Aspen like nobody's business.

I'm new to Pioneer and I'm hoping this P20 isn't the gateway saw to a new hobby. My daily driver is an MS362 but this little P20 is so light, I can see myself picking it up first for smaller trees, delimbing, bucking.

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Welcome, enjoy the ride.

 

[pioneerguy600]

New to AS.

Bought an old hermit's property and found this old P20. The old man was not a small-engine maintainer so a lot of 'dead' pile had fairly simple problems. This P20 had a cracked fuel pickup line and was sucking air. Put in a new line, cleaned out the fuel tank, and it fired right up on the first pull, ran solid on the second pull and chewed through a decent sized Aspen like nobody's business.

I'm new to Pioneer and I'm hoping this P20 isn't the gateway saw to a new hobby. My daily driver is an MS362 but this little P20 is so light, I can see myself picking it up first for smaller trees, delimbing, bucking.

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Welcome to the world of Pioneer madness, if one is not enough 45 -50is not either as my collection has never really stopped growing ,it has just slowed somewhat. The paint on the Pioneers is self destructing and take good care of that green plastic airfilter cover,they break really easily and are difficult to find replacements or repair easily.

 

[heimannm]

That looks to be an original Pioneer chain on the saw, notice the "rooster tail" guard links. I wish I could remember a few of the names for the different Pioneer chains they offered.

Mark

 

[Jay Hansen]

You've been bitten. Just surrender gracefully, there's no upside to resistance.

 

[hpeyerl]

Welcome to the world of Pioneer madness, if one is not enough 45 -50is not either as my collection has never really stopped growing ,it has just slowed somewhat. The paint on the Pioneers is self destructing and take good care of that green plastic airfilter cover,they break really easily and are difficult to find replacements or repair easily.

I did notice the proliferation of 3D printed air filter covers on Etsy so figured they must be hens teeth. I'm not sure whether I'd go through the effort to strip/repaint the thing and I don't suppose there's any Krylon or similar paint code that will match?

That looks to be an original Pioneer chain on the saw, notice the "rooster tail" guard links.

I did notice those and wondered about them. I was surprised how sharp the chain was. I feel like the old man was about to use the saw one day when he couldn't get it started and just shovelled it into the basement and went out and bought the Poulan 4018 that I also found in the garage.

 

[pioneerguy600]

I did notice the proliferation of 3D printed air filter covers on Etsy so figured they must be hens teeth. I'm not sure whether I'd go through the effort to strip/repaint the thing and I don't suppose there's any Krylon or similar paint code that will match?

Do not bother repainting with rattle can paints, they will not stay if the saw is to be used, any gasoline will dissolve it or it will go completely crows foot on you. Restoring Pioneer paint is a big long process even if the saw is to become a shelf queen one needs to get all the contamination out of the porous metal the saw is made from. Getting the contamination out so the paint can bond requires paint stripping, boiling of the parts in water and detergent, final sanding and then better paint than a off the shelf spray can can deliver. There are many restored saws way back in this thread many of them took more than 40 hours of time and work.

That looks to be an original Pioneer chain on the saw, notice the "rooster tail" guard links. I wish I could remember a few of the names for the different Pioneer chains they offered.

Mark

If the chain is from the correct period of the saw itself it would be Duraguard, earlier chain was called Sureguard , if the chain did not have the safety guards on it it would likely be Duracut.

 

[cdahl383]

Just picked up a Pioneer 620 chainsaw last weekend. I was reading a lot of info from this forum and figured I'd join up. Based on what I've found online it appears to have been made between 1960-1962 and has a 103cc engine. It's definitely the biggest saw I have currently. Came with a 24" bar and what appears to be a .404 chain. From what I can tell it seems to be in pretty decent shape.

I cleaned it up, verified it has spark, ran a compression test and found it has 150psi, and took the muffler off to inspect the piston/cylinder which look good. The fuel tank had a lot of varnish in it, so I cleaned it out with some Berryman Chem-Dip. After 4 hours of soaking the fuel tank came out great. I cleaned the air filter and ordered a carb rebuild kit (carb is a Tillotson HL22A). Looks like I'll need a new fuel filter, a new felt filter for the sediment bowl, and a few gaskets.

Hoping to get it fired up after rebuilding the carb. Would be cool to see it running again!

 

[LB6259]

Its a bit rough, but it's slowly coming together. Haven't had a chance to really get anything done as far as working on projects but this one's the main focus now that it's cold out.

 

[pioneerguy600]

Quite the frankensaw, be great saw if you get it running.

 

[Jay Hansen]

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Its a bit rough, but it's slowly coming together. Haven't had a chance to really get anything done as far as working on projects but this one's the main focus now that it's cold out.

I picked up a bunch of used 6 cube Pioneer parts recently. If you run into a need for this or that as your project moves forward, I might be able to help you out.

 

[cdahl383]

Picked up three Pioneer saws today. Two 1073s and one P20. The P20 runs. The 1073s ran a while ago but currently don’t start. Will get them running soon.

They seem to be in pretty good shape. The 1073s came with original carrying cases too. My Pioneer collection is slowly growing haha!

 

[Jay Hansen]

I recently got a 1074 and was surprised to find this chain on it
It's stamped Pioneer, it's .325 pitch low kickback, and it's also full skip. I haven't seen this before.

 

[heimannm]

Jerry told me the early versions of that type chain were called Sure Guard, later versions were called Dura Guard. and some chain without the tails were called Dura Cut.

Pioneer tried a lot of different things with chains, I have some with the depth gauge on a different link than the cutter.

Mark

 

[pioneerguy600]

Jerry told me the early versions of that type chain were called Sure Guard, later versions were called Dura Guard. and some chain without the tails were called Dura Cut.

Pioneer tried a lot of different things with chains, I have some with the depth gauge on a different link than the cutter.

Mark

Looking through the Pioneer chain catalogues there is no mention of ,skip chain in any pitch. If the chain is indeed Pioneer chain, made by Pioneer then it might be a rare piece of Pioneer history. They made chain in house and did a fair bit of different things in their chain research.

 

[hpeyerl]

I had a bunch of cleanup to do yesterday so I took the P20 out. It fits nicely in the holster I made for it on my tractor. I spent pretty much all day out there and that little saw just chews through stuff. I'm so tickled with it. It's light, starts every time, and doesn't antagonize my bad shoulder like my MS362 does.

Though I had an unrelated 'incident' that we don't need to talk about..

 

[heimannm]

I hope no one was injured and damage was minimal.

Mark

 

[hpeyerl]

I hope no one was injured and damage was minimal.

Thanks. It was slow-motion enough that I had time to step away and be annoyed at myself before it came to rest. No damage except for a bit of hydraulic fluid that leaked out of the breather. I know a lot of owners remove their ROPS and they are frequently annoying but times like this, I'm thankful for them.

 

[hpeyerl]

After another day of cleanup with the P20 I started smelling gas. My tractor is diesel so I know the smell was coming from the saw. My use pattern was to cut for a couple of minutes, then shut it off and carry/load for 15 mins, repeat. The saw did awesome otherwise.

I opened the fuel tank on the saw, heard a short hiss (I think it was pressurized, not under vacuum). When I looked inside the tank, it was hissing/bubbling. Almost like it was boiling and it kept going for a good 30-60 seconds before I had the presence of mind to take a video. https://photos.app.goo.gl/EYfa3q68EiYn3gow5

The body of the saw was warm but not hot. I didn't think to stick my finger in and check the temperature of the fuel. So I'm of mixed opinion whether it was boiling or whether it was just air coming out of solution due to a reduction in pressure. The latter seems like a stretch.

Anyway, is this common across these saws? Anyone have any thoughts about what's going on?

 

[fossil]

After another day of cleanup with the P20 I started smelling gas. My tractor is diesel so I know the smell was coming from the saw. My use pattern was to cut for a couple of minutes, then shut it off and carry/load for 15 mins, repeat. The saw did awesome otherwise.

I opened the fuel tank on the saw, heard a short hiss (I think it was pressurized, not under vacuum). When I looked inside the tank, it was hissing/bubbling. Almost like it was boiling and it kept going for a good 30-60 seconds before I had the presence of mind to take a video. https://photos.app.goo.gl/EYfa3q68EiYn3gow5van have that issue

The body of the saw was warm but not hot. I didn't think to stick my finger in and check the temperature of the fuel. So I'm of mixed opinion whether it was boiling or whether it was just air coming out of solution due to a reduction in pressure. The latter seems like a stretch.

Anyway, is this common across these saws? Anyone have any thoughts about what's going on?

Gas can boil at low temps. Make sure there's no crud under the covers especially around the fuel tank. That helps. Most of the older saws have a tendency to boil fuel.

There should be and insulating block under the carb as well. That's important.

 

[hpeyerl]

There should be and insulating block under the carb as well. That's important.

Looks pretty clean and there's an insulating block it looks like.
Guess I'll just have to keep an eye on it throughout the day.

Thanks.