Had to fix my Harbor Freight pole saw today

[Slowpoke Slim]

I bought my Lynxx pole saw a year ago last month. I've been very pleased with it's performance, and I've used the heck out of it. I'm also quite sure I'm cutting branches bigger than it's intended to cut. Anyway, I was using it today, and it started making a shrill wining noise when I put a load on it, and the chain would stop. Take the load off, and the whine went away and the chain would run again. So I looked up the exploded assembly diagram online, and proceeded to take mine apart.

I did take a couple of pictures:

The bar/chain cover, and bar/chain are already off. And I've taken the retaining clip off that holds the washer on the chain drive sprocket. That's the retaining clip and washer sitting next to the saw.



I was certain that the gears were destroyed before I took it apart. I just assumed they must have been some cheap plastic gear set. Anyway, took the side cover off (no pic), the side cover screws are #20 torx head screws.

What I found, once I cleaned about 2 metric tons of grease off of the ring and pinion gears, was the gears were actually steel, and they were fully intact, with no teeth missing or worn down. The pinion gear is a tapered gear, and it's sitting on the motor output shaft. What I found was the pinion gear was not engaging the ring gear all the way, and I could force the ring gear to "skip" over the pinion gear by holding the motor fan (to hold the motor shaft stationary), and rotate the ring gear with my other hand.

Then I noticed that the motor mounting block that holds the motor in place in the housing, had BOTH of it's mounting screws (that screw into the front of the motor) completely backed out and sitting there loose.

Here is a side angle shot, where you can see the ring and pinion gears, and the white plastic block with the screw backed completely out of the hole.



Here is a "top down" shot. There is another screw on the underside of the pic, that was also backed completely out.



That allowed/caused the drive motor to move backwards in the housing, which caused the tapered pinion gear to disengage the ring gear.

Once I was able to remove the motor (have to do that to get a screwdriver on those 2 screw heads to tighten them down), and tighten the block back onto the motor, I was able to reinstall the motor and the pinion engagement seemed fine.

I reassembled the saw, packing a bunch of grease back into the gears before putting side covers back together, and it works normally again. I used it for several hours of run time after the repair, and it seems to run fine with no other issues or noises.

On hind sight, I think I probably should have cleaned the 2 screws off that had backed out, and put some thread locker on them before retightening them. There is a lock washer on each one, and a flat washer also (may be able to see them in the pic), but they did back out once already. I did tighten them "about enough", so we shall see. If it happens again, I will definitely put some blue, or even red loctight on them before I reassemble again.

Anyway, hope this helps if anyone else finds the same thing happening to their saw. I was happy I didn't have any broken parts, and it was a simple repair, once I scienced out the disassembly process.

 

[AWSubie]

Thanks for the information. I bought one two weeks ago and so far have been pleased with it.

 

[dullpain]

Thanks again for the info, bought one 3 weeks ago and not used yet. If same happens to me I’ll know what to do.

 

[shooterdon]

Great info. I bought mine a month ago. Nice little saw for the money

 

[dasranger]

On my second year with mine. Love it. Thanks for the info. Top notch.

 

[newbury]

Great info- mine died also, and I figured it would be something simple with NO parts available. But then I've an Echo PPT-280 that reaches out to 17 feet so I have not even tried to repair it.
I liked to use the HF pruner while riding my M4700 down the lane. The lane is thick with trees on both sides. I rest the pruner on the hood. Drive a bit, stand up and trim a bit, drive a bit. I got so I could trim limbs and have them fall in the bucket. Easy peasy. The Echo is too big for that.

 

[Oaktree]

Wish I'd seen this thread last summer when mine did the same thing.

As it happened, my local store offered to exchange it if I bought the extended warranty, so all was well. I'll keep this in mind in case the new one does the same thing.

 

[MarkLebo]

Thanks! I had the exact same problem and may have tossed the pole saw had I not first found your post.

I am not proud yet rather than taking apart the gear section to get to the bottom screw, I epoxy-glued the plastic mounting block to the motor housing and then installed the top screw with Loctite. After putting back together, it worked like new. Now, we will see how long the pole saw lasts before I need to do a better repair... or in the recycle bin.

 

[ericm979]

The motor screws on mine came loose too. It made a terrible noise in the middle of a cut and stopped working. I also thought the gears were stripped but they were fine.

I have had it apart three times- twice to fix a leak. There was casting flash around the oil tank's nipple. I had to do it twice because I was too conservative with my trimming the first time and it still leaked a little. And then to fix the loose motor screws. While it was not designed with serviceability in mind (nothing is these days) it's not hard to take apart and put back together.

If you have one it might be worth taking it apart and tightening the motor screws before the gears slip instead of waiting for it to happen.

 

[5030]

Interestingly, the cheap Portland corded pole saw (69 bucks) and the Lynx battery saw are the same under the covers except the Lynx has a different motor versus the 110 volt Portland. I just put my small genny in the bed of the side by side with an extension cord and cut away.