What is your cleaning and maintenance routine for your chainsaw?

[dirttoys]

I guess we are lucky.
In Minnesota when we go down for our grocery runs we can buy pump gas that's ethanol free / 91 octane.
Last weekend when I filled up my jerry cans I think it was around $2.70 / gallon.
Stihl makes what seems to be a great 2 cycle premium mix oil with 1 bottle being a little more than whats needed for 2 5 gallon jerry cans.

Yea I am fortunate to have access to it to, and I use it for all my 4 stroke stuff. I haven't had that good a luck with mixing my own even non-ethanol, for sum reason. I don't usually believe in the magic of over priced fuel/additives, but, I enjoy cleaning the little carbs so little, that I just bite the bullet............

Best,

ed

 

[stevem5215]

I use the Stihl Ultra Synthetic in my 35 year old Toro two stroke and ethanol 10% premium gas without issue. Also use it in my 1980 Blizzard 7500+ 340cc snowmobile year to year as I only ride it around the yard or take it to a Vintage show. I use the canned synthetic 40-1 and 50-1 "gas" in the Ryobi chainsaw, weedwacker, gas blower and any small engine that shows up at my house. I have only had trouble with one gas saw and it ended up being over 10 years old and it scored the cylinder and lost compression and I scrapped it a couple years back along with a Ryobi old blower that ingested grasses into the suction side and ruined the crank and bearings. (not gas related)

These oil threads can go on forever with everyone chiming in with their experience on gas and oil. Personally, I'm using the Stihl Synthetic small bottles that I mix with gas in the EFCO 5720 chainsaw till I die. lol...

 

[5030]

Just bought a Skil top handle to replace the Stihl top handle I smashed with the tractor a few weeks ago. 50% of the cost.

 

[SwingOak]

i touch up the chain every other tank, or when it gets dull. At the end of the day or before the next time I use them, I take the clutch cover off and clean everything out, including oil port and bar groove. Blow off the saw, the Stihl/Echo saws get the air filter blown out, Husqvarna saws I don't bother with that except maybe once a year.

Put them all back together, grease the nose sprocket if it's got one that's greasable, sharpen the chain, check and file depth gauge/raker height (and no, they are not actually rakers, but I say call 'em what you like because everyone still knows what you're talking about, so it doesn't matter), fill gas and oil tanks and they're ready to go for next time.

I use 91 or better octane ethanol free fuel only with a good quality oil at 50:1. In fact, I only use ethanol free gas for all power and off road equipment.

I forgot to add that I pull the clutch and clean/grease the oil pump/clutch bearing when the bar and chain come off. All the saw manuals say to replace the drive sprocket every time you replace the chain, but I rarely have bothered to replace a drive sprocket unless it was really worn out.

Make sure the oiling ports in the bar are cleared out too...

 

[SwingOak]

Actually, the Stihl pre mix bottles have fuel stabilizer in them. My saws all reside in a heated and cooled shop anyway.

My saws don't sit around unused long enough for fuel stabilizer to be necessary.

 

[ArlyA]

We use that Stihl Synthetic oil whatever its called and it has stabilizer in it. Put a new fuel filter and spark lug in yearly. Clean the bar and chain cover out every few hours of operation.

 

[5030]

We use that Stihl Synthetic oil whatever its called and it has stabilizer in it. Put a new fuel filter and spark lug in yearly. Clean the bar and chain cover out every few hours of operation.

Good stuff. I use the 1 gallon small bottles. I believe it has Marine Stabil in it.

 

[stevem5215]

Yes, the Stihl synthetic has stabilizer in it. With that fuel & oil mix my Toro 2 stroke Suzuki engine lawn mower starts first pull every spring. Amazing

 

[NoTrespassing]

No maintenance at all here. I couldn't get my Stihl started last weekend so I set in front of a space heater for 2 hours and it started right up. The chain was very dull though and I ended up using the neighbor's saw.

 

[ArlyA]

We use that Stihl Synthetic oil whatever its called and it has stabilizer in it. Put a new fuel filter and spark lug in yearly. Clean the bar and chain cover out every few hours of operation.

I should have added, each spring we take it to our dealer and they put in a "tune up" kit. That includes an air and fuel filter and spark plug. Our mainly used machine has valves that get adjusted.