The Chainsaw Teardown

I have been tearing down and diagnosing my bro-in-law's chainsaw from a catastrophic failure.  It appears the piston welded itself to the cylinder wall.  This is an MS290 "Farm Boss" only 6 years old or so.  Tearing it down, I see evidence of a few problems contributing to the overall failure.

Tearing off the muffler, it is easily seen the piston is severely scored, and a piston ring is smushed.  This is bad.  After a little research, the most likely cause is either no oil in the gas, or old gas mix.

It's also possible to get this problem with an air leak in the fuel pickup or the carburetor boot, causing the engine to run lean and/or over-rev.

I took off about 300 parts to get down to this point.  That cylinder sure was difficult to pull off.  It took quite a bit of effort.

It's hard to see in the picture, but it's easy to feel with a finger:  The cylinder is trash due to heavy scratches.  It wouldn't hold compression if only the piston was replaced.

The piston is so small compared to the big antique John Deere tractors.  This piston measures at 46mm, and idles at 2,800rpm with a top end of around 12,000 rpm.

Dirt restricts air flow in the air-cooled engine.  

The dirt and grime surely didn't help in this matter.

One interesting find is this:  The race that holds the balls of the ball bearing in place is plastic.  It was broken in many places, but all the balls were still in place (at least for a little while).

The air filter was pretty well plugged up with a quarter inch of fine dust.  This can lead to engine problems from what I've read.

I squirted some degreaser on the main parts, and hosed them down.  

It's amazing things cleaned up so nicely.

I'm expecting a cylinder/piston rebuild kit to arrive in the mail Tuesday.  The kit I ordered bumps up the engine size from 46mm to 49mm.  Thus, it changes it from a MS290 to a MS390.  This bumps up the power from 3.8 bhp to 4.3 bhp or about 13%!

I've also ordered a few other parts (fuel line, impulse line, new air filter, and a missing chain bumper) off of Ebay.  Those are coming from Hong Kong, and should arrive by November!  Geesh!

The Colorado Trip

We took a big road trip in the middle of summer this year.  So big, in fact, that it has taken me two months to get photos up on this ol' blog.  We drove out to Colorado and back.  It was a monumental effort, but we really enjoyed it all - even the drive.

Day 1 - We started our adventure after church.  

Kids were ready to go.

We got as far as Macon, Missouri for the first night.

We lined kids up like hot dogs on the skinny bed.

Today's driving was right around 350 miles.

Day 2 - More driving westbound.  We spent a good chunk of time in Kansas City with the Federal Reserve Bank, and the Hallmark Museum.  Number 3 Kiddo had his birthday today, so we had ice cream sandwiches in the mid afternoon in Junction City Kansas.  We settled for the night at a cozy motel in Oakley Kansas.  500 miles

Day 3 - We finally arrived to Brother In Law's (BIL) house.  It was nice to be done driving.  We unloaded and kids ran around like crazy monkeys.  275 miles

Day 4 - A day in Colorado Springs.  We packed it full with a visit to the Air Force Academy chapel, Focus on the Family Headquarters, Garden of the Gods, and a Space Science Museum.

Day 5 - Kids got tired of the van, so we had a day at BIL's house.  We watched a movie, and some of us went swimming.  #3 Kiddo fell off the little ledge within the pool and plummeted to the bottom!  I yanked him out and he blubbered for a bit but was just fine.

Day 6 - On the agenda today was the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.  An all day event, with a picnic lunch in the hot sun.

Day 7 - A day mostly at BIL's house.  We did laundry.  # 2 Kiddo (with the cast) fell down the spiral staircase and was slow moving afterwards.  We went to a park for the fireworks display.  Tons of people, and rather breezy, but good fireworks!

Day 8 - Church in the morning.  Then we drove to Lookout Mountain in the rain, and hiked around for a short bit.  More clouds and rain on the way, so we went down and went to Red Rocks Amphitheater.  There was a concert getting ready to start - some crazy metal rock band that wasn't our type.  We got rained out anways, so we went back to BIL's house with a pizza.

Day 9 - Original Pancake House for breakfast.  In the afternoon, the two of us went out and toured a small microbrewery (Breckenridge Brewery).  It was really neat and interesting tour.  Kids stayed home with their favorite uncle.

(Yes - I ate all of that) 

Day 10 - We visited Hammond's Candies for a factory tour on the way up to Boulder.  Again, we travelled in a rain cloud and saw very little of the view.  We went on a 1 mile hike within Chautauqua Park.  We were nearly rained out, but we went anyways.  Then we went on a factory tour of the Celestial Seasonings plant.  Awesome.

Day 11 - A slower day for us.  We went to the nearby city park, and it was amazing.  I think we were there for 3 hours.  Kids didn't want to leave.  We started packing for home in the evening.

Day 12 - We struck off and started our drive for home.  Eastern Colorado and Nebraska is some really flat driving.  Hot fudge sundaes in the mid afternoon.  We stayed in a posh hotel in downtown Lincoln Nebraska for the evening.  The parking garage was super narrow and scary.  We lined up the kids like hotdogs in their bed again and they went right to sleep.  500 miles today.

Day 13 - More driving eastward.  We got to Grandma's house just around 3pm.  My parents were there and it was fun to see everybody.  We had a quick visit with Grandma in the nursing home, ate more ice cream sandwiches, then continued driving.  We spent alot of time at the playground near the Amana Colonies, and stayed in a skuzzy motel somewhere east of Iowa City.

Day 14 - Rain all day.  (And I mean alllll day).  We stopped at a very crowded John Deere Pavilion in Moline IL, and ate lunch at Lagomarcinos with a desert of hot fudge sundaes.  It was great.  Wife drove through all of Illinois.  I continued on.  Finally home around 7:15 with a quick visit to Meijer prior to for milk, eggs, and a rotisserie chicken.  

The kids enjoyed the challenge of putting their heads in the icy cooler once we got home.  

Good to be home.  2640 total miles.

The Stump Crew

We managed to pull out one of the locust tree stumps with the old John Deere H, and now the kids are going to town scraping the dirt off the roots.  Here's a good picture of my crew.

Rantoul Tractor Show

We had a good time at the Rantoul Tractor Show with Dad and his "buggy".  Here's a few pictures:

Corn was fun to pick up.  This was a common theme through the day.

My #3 Kiddo really liked the "mud".  

Anything slightly wetter than dust is what he considers mud.

A good hat:

Finally watching some of the event:

But that didn't last long.  Soybeans on the ground are more interesting than the equipment lumbering behind them.  Geesh!

#2 Kiddo liked corn stalks.  We had to convince him we were not bringing any home.

We all had a real good day, and look forward to the same show in 2 years from now.

Storm Damage

We were hit pretty hard Friday late afternoon with straight line winds.  (We don't think it was a tornado, and the news stations haven't said anything of a tornado).  We lost 6 trees on our little property, and the backdoor neighbors lost perhaps 20 to 25.

The willow tree in the front yard fell down.  The flood did not flush it away for us, though.

 A big branch hit our transformer.  It didn't explode (I think), but all the oil leaked out and it had to be replaced.

Big branches fell down and blocked the neighbor's driveways, again.

 Our small apple tree eventually yielded and laid down, too.

We lost the top of this nice spruce tree. 

We quickly carved a path through the trees blocking the driveways.  

A locust tree fell, too.

The neighbors had tremendous damage.  This is the little bridge over the creek with 3 big trees blocking the way.

More of the neighbor's trees.  I think there are about 8 down in this bunch.

And more neighbors on down the road.  What a mess!

We're going to bed pretty tired tonight.