Excellent info brother. I’ve been preaching for years to anyone running 2 strokes about the importance of letting these engines warm up to avoid excessive p/c wear and cold seizures. Keep up with the informative videos.
This is pure GOLD info. Your right nobody ever talks about how to tell a worn piston before it explodes and costs you a cylinder too. Thanks dude this one of the best videos out of the 100's I have watched. YES please keep it coming.
I would definitely be keen to see a when it's time to change them out series, air filters, bars/chains, AV mounts. Other stuff that just wears out with use
Thank you so much for your help. I'm a rookie with Stihl, got bronze working on silver. So much to learn, this video helped tremendously. It was explained perfectly. Thank you
One of my favorite you tube guys is hotsaws101 he has amazing falling videos and really technical stuff and does really in depth shows of things. I really dig this stuff Gordy thanks man.
Thanks Gordy, Great video! Not letting a saw warm up properly and cool down is a common issue I see folks do. Another thing to keep in mind especially with aftermarket pistons is to measure them and make sure they measure the proper tolerance for your cylinder before installing, nothing worse than replacing a piston only to find out it was too loose or tight and fails. Also check your ring gap and chamfer the edges of the piston. I can attest to the fact that with proper maintenance, good gas and oil, proper tuning, and replacing the piston and rings before failure one can get many years out of a oem cylinder. I own several with 25+ years on the original cylinders production logging. One thing I don't hear folks talk about that I have personally experienced is having debris get into the muffler of a saw then end up in the cylinder. It has made me reconsider removing the muffler screens. One was a ms361 that had gotten a piece of wood in the muffler when I pulled the saw over it seezed when I removed the muffler to check it out I was surprised to see the wood jammed between the exhaust port and piston, damaging the piston. The other was a ms461 that was in the back of a friend's pickup loaded with firewood that got rain water in it and was left to sit for a while when it was started later the crank bearings failed. I am getting ready to rebuild and port that saw now, so I would be interested in your take on a ms461 build. Something to be mindful of with mufflers and saws in pickup beds.
Great Job Gordy some real gold right here keep up the great work man!!!! Tube salad coming in clutch with the stand hopefully no agents show up to his house over it lol.
Importance of warming up=watch the start of a 2 stroke dirt bike race. They don’t kick and go, they are blipping the throttle and letting it get right for a couple minutes before they launch. Excellent explanation of what’s causing some of the premature wear and what to do and when!
At 3:07 - looks like the piston of the F7. Had an air leak, rode home on the freeway. Lost power bad when I got off the freeway, then quit. No compression *at all.*
great tip on letting the chainsaw warm up. I didn't know about the pins in the piston rings. I never heard that before. Great knowledge for equipment care.
Good info to have about seizures and cylinders. And looking into the exhaust port is DEFINITELY the easiest thing to start with because that’s what I do. From 2-6 bolts and there you are. Having a good light source is often the hardest thing to have “handy”, but experience is a great teacher with life 😊
You can get a little coast hx5 for like 9 dollars and it is the perfect pocket light. Small, light, bright, and good runtime. Any man (or woman for that matter) not carrying a knife and a torch in 2022 needs to treat themselves to the 10 dollar upgrade!!! im so used to using one now that if im still within a couple minutes of the house i'll turn around to go back and get it. Id rather leave my house without pants than without knife, flashlight, and coffee.
Great Video Gordy!! Sharing your experience and knowledge with your ‘Followers’ is a great help to those of us trying to learn from other peoples’ experiences. It’s also very helpful to learn best method practices (warm up / cool down) in order to prevent premature expensive repairs and/or catastrophic damages.
This is an amazing video Gordy! You explain things in a way that is so much easier to understand for us newbies. Please if you get the time make more of these instructional type videos. I appreciate all you do to take time out of your busy day to film the videos. Huge fan of everything you guys do and I will support you in any way I can. Have a Happy Thanksgiving Buddy.
Gordy could you do a video when you are out falling next of how you would warm your saw up and the amount of time you'd let it idle for. Also the amount of time you'd leave in between bucking timber etc pretty well how you'd treat your saw in a general work day cheers mate.
Listen to your saw. The sound will change from a cold start. I tend to have it run 30 seconds to a minute from cold and shut it down and let it heat soak for a couple of minutes. After cutting or bucking, same. 30 seconds to a minute depending on outside temp.
I'm the guy that didnt warm up my new west coast 461 and heat seized it. It was a sharp, hungry chain on a brand new built saw. I was pressed for time to get 4 cords of softwood out and was cutting large rounds and ripping them as fast as I could. Long story short I knew better but it was cutting awesome and I had people waiting on me. The saw was toast, completely my fault. I had Gordy repair it and it gets treated properly, warm up and cool down. It has made me a lot of money and still runs strong. I never run my good falling saws in the wood yard just like I never take a firewood saw to cut timber. Great content and am anxiously awaiting more videos on when to replace wear parts, clutches, air filters, carbs etc. I am famous for running until fail then losing time getting another saw out of the truck. Most of my fails are pistons, broken skirts, hanging a ring in a port and breaking the top of piston or simply breaking a ring. Last one was a 660, broke the wrist pin out of piston and shoved it into oil tank. God bless and stay sharp.
Fire it up & hold it wide open. If you run enough good oil, it will never be a problem. Sound crazy, but I know of many oldtimers who run modern ported saws just like that.. strongest 046 I've ever run was treated just like that every morning. That saw would spin the clutch it had so much torque.
@@kennethbrewer2495 that happened from being lean, not improper usage.. Your breaking piston problems are also from lean conditions. Too much heat... I've cut tens of millions of Mbf with 92cc stihls & have only ever blown up one of them. Happened moments after grinding through the backcut after hitting something. Too much heat turned the exhaust skirt into pebbles.
Dude I getting to log in my buffer strip area down here in Glendale Oregon I’m glad I caught onto your channel. Good educational video for a guy like me tryna do things myself
That's the way to do it young fella. Not real long, to the point & some real good info. I'm an old man from Northern MI. Heat w /wood and running some old saws. Probably will be doing some investigating with the old 288xp, 365 special etc. Really good info about the cross hatching etc. Keep at it. Thanks.
Great info Gordy. I have my stock 461 that wears some WCS upgrades and the mods not only make the say run better it looks awesome too! I would like to see more on the 461 in the future as this piston tutorial was really helpful. I don’t think you ever have to worry about your TH-cam equality, it always good.
Outstanding teaching! Is it just me, or does anyone else see tons of comments in chainsaw videos with guys screaming that the saw needs to be leaned out?
Awesome video Gordy!! I appreciate the information and knowledge that you shared. Extremely beneficial to those of us newer to the saw game. Keep up the content even if it doesn't turn out as great as you think it should.
Some dam good info right there, from an old worn out MX guy your explanations are spot on. That over heated piston also looked like a 4 corner seize starting but powered though...and screwed the whole thing lol enjoyed.
A thought on warming up and heat in the pistons: The crown is actually the only part of the piston that expands a great deal. Above the rings. The crown is frequently a different diameter than the skirt to account for this. Take a 2stoke bike for example the crown is quite a bit smaller to account for this expansion.
I bought a $5 Stihl AV 034 at a yard sale. Ran for about 15 minutes after I put new mixed fuel in it before it died. Brought it to my local saw shop because I couldn't get it running, he said the rubber boot wasn't on all the way leaning it out. Bummer my good deal didn't last long. Ended up buying a used Stihl 361 from him and will rebuild the 034 with a 036 top end for the learning experience.
9:16, had to have been a lean condition in order to create that much expansion without the jug following suit. Most all of the older guys I've ever been around fire the saw up & peg the throttle for a good 10 seconds. These new electronic saws don't load up fuel like their formers or something. I've got a pile of 92cc stihls that were run hard off the jump every morning. Only ever blew up one of them, which was also my first port job.
Hi Gordy Excellent information you are sharing and very well spoken. Love all your WCS products they certainly make a big improvement on all my Stihl saws especially on 500i keep up good 👍 work and stay safe.
Yeah Gordy, great video, start the saw then put on yer gear, save 5 Hundy the easy way. Have been enjoying all the technical / felling videos with you and Jake and Antone. Youre getting much better at videos, now you have a tripod 🤭
Just the info I was looking for! I do have a few questions though... open to answers from anybody My 461 shows the kind of piston intake wear you show at 14:51, only at the very bottom of the skirt though. Otherwise the piston looks great (shiny, plenty of machining marks, no scoring). - What does this wear pattern mean for the life of my top end? - Is there anything I can do to minimize or prevent further wear? - What does this wear pattern say about how the saw was used in the past? - What does this wear pattern say about any other issues the saw might have? This 461 was manufactured in 2020 and has really low hours on it. I was surprised to see that horizontal discoloration on the bottom of the piston on the intake side but I guess its a relief to learn that this is typical of 461s
just found this video and for a person who didn't know much about pistons,cylinders I learned a lot. To many times guy's who know alot get to tecnical because they figure everyone knows the lingo, the part etc.Very good video- keep them coming.
Very educational, i would b interested in more videos like this. I have 2 461’s and get my 046 back from my uncle. Very low mileage. Should have not let it go
I've been running the original piston in my weed eater 30 years now, accidentally seized it and covered over the ring with aluminum, cleaned that up and put a used ring in from another trash-picked trimmer, new crank bearings and it's still going strong.
Thanks for an informative video. Correct me if I'm wrong, but those types of ball hones are will not work on Nickesil plated cylinders. Secondly I've heard that when installing a new cast piston it is beneficial to heat them in an oven @450 degrees for 4 hrs an then quenching them in cold water. Have you ever done this or heard of this technique? Thanks again for sharing your knowledge.
Ur a natural Gordy. Love the content. The more you do the easier it gets
Thank you Richard I am trying buddy 😁👍
Excellent info brother. I’ve been preaching for years to anyone running 2 strokes about the importance of letting these engines warm up to avoid excessive p/c wear and cold seizures.
Keep up with the informative videos.
Great video Gordy 👏
This is pure GOLD info. Your right nobody ever talks about how to tell a worn piston before it explodes and costs you a cylinder too. Thanks dude this one of the best videos out of the 100's I have watched. YES please keep it coming.
I would definitely be keen to see a when it's time to change them out series, air filters, bars/chains, AV mounts. Other stuff that just wears out with use
Thanks for taking the time to share this, very informative. More videos on saw maintenance and saw modifications would be greatly appreciated
Great video Gordy. These kind of technical videos and how to videos are awesome content. Thankyou.
Thank you so much for your help. I'm a rookie with Stihl, got bronze working on silver. So much to learn, this video helped tremendously. It was explained perfectly. Thank you
One of my favorite you tube guys is hotsaws101 he has amazing falling videos and really technical stuff and does really in depth shows of things. I really dig this stuff Gordy thanks man.
Thanks Gordy, Great video! Not letting a saw warm up properly and cool down is a common issue I see folks do. Another thing to keep in mind especially with aftermarket pistons is to measure them and make sure they measure the proper tolerance for your cylinder before installing, nothing worse than replacing a piston only to find out it was too loose or tight and fails. Also check your ring gap and chamfer the edges of the piston. I can attest to the fact that with proper maintenance, good gas and oil, proper tuning, and replacing the piston and rings before failure one can get many years out of a oem cylinder. I own several with 25+ years on the original cylinders production logging. One thing I don't hear folks talk about that I have personally experienced is having debris get into the muffler of a saw then end up in the cylinder. It has made me reconsider removing the muffler screens. One was a ms361 that had gotten a piece of wood in the muffler when I pulled the saw over it seezed when I removed the muffler to check it out I was surprised to see the wood jammed between the exhaust port and piston, damaging the piston. The other was a ms461 that was in the back of a friend's pickup loaded with firewood that got rain water in it and was left to sit for a while when it was started later the crank bearings failed. I am getting ready to rebuild and port that saw now, so I would be interested in your take on a ms461 build. Something to be mindful of with mufflers and saws in pickup beds.
All great tips thanks for chiming in 👍
@@westcoastsaw1368 👍
What kind of oil do you use?
@@ryanjoyner6853 Bel-Ray H1-R
Thank you for making this video Gordy. So much information to digest. Excellent explanation on machining marks on pistons. 😲😲
Awesome content. Thank for sharing your knowledge, we appreciate it.
Great Job Gordy some real gold right here keep up the great work man!!!! Tube salad coming in clutch with the stand hopefully no agents show up to his house over it lol.
😂 yeah Gordy runs with a rough crowd for
Sure
Break in is crucial in a saw , I live on the northeast and we deal with cold weather and it's a good thing to let your saw warm up
Really great stuff Gordy.... you're the man !!!! 😉😁
Importance of warming up=watch the start of a 2 stroke dirt bike race. They don’t kick and go, they are blipping the throttle and letting it get right for a couple minutes before they launch. Excellent explanation of what’s causing some of the premature wear and what to do and when!
Thanks Gordy. Love your videos. I'd be interested on a how to change out a piston video in detail. Regards Glenn, Australia
Thanks Gordy!!! So many nuggets of info
At 3:07 - looks like the piston of the F7. Had an air leak, rode home on the freeway. Lost power bad when I got off the freeway, then quit. No compression *at all.*
great tip on letting the chainsaw warm up. I didn't know about the pins in the piston rings. I never heard that before. Great knowledge for equipment care.
Good info to have about seizures and cylinders. And looking into the exhaust port is DEFINITELY the easiest thing to start with because that’s what I do. From 2-6 bolts and there you are. Having a good light source is often the hardest thing to have “handy”, but experience is a great teacher with life 😊
You can get a little coast hx5 for like 9 dollars and it is the perfect pocket light. Small, light, bright, and good runtime.
Any man (or woman for that matter) not carrying a knife and a torch in 2022 needs to treat themselves to the 10 dollar upgrade!!! im so used to using one now that if im still within a couple minutes of the house i'll turn around to go back and get it. Id rather leave my house without pants than without knife, flashlight, and coffee.
The machining on the skirt is called knurling and it does serve as you said to decrease clearance and carry fuel oil mix.
Great Video Gordy!! Sharing your experience and knowledge with your ‘Followers’ is a great help to those of us trying to learn from other peoples’ experiences. It’s also very helpful to learn best method practices (warm up / cool down) in order to prevent premature expensive repairs and/or catastrophic damages.
This is an amazing video Gordy! You explain things in a way that is so much easier to understand for us newbies. Please if you get the time make more of these instructional type videos. I appreciate all you do to take time out of your busy day to film the videos. Huge fan of everything you guys do and I will support you in any way I can. Have a Happy Thanksgiving Buddy.
Gordy could you do a video when you are out falling next of how you would warm your saw up and the amount of time you'd let it idle for. Also the amount of time you'd leave in between bucking timber etc pretty well how you'd treat your saw in a general work day cheers mate.
Listen to your saw. The sound will change from a cold start. I tend to have it run 30 seconds to a minute from cold and shut it down and let it heat soak for a couple of minutes.
After cutting or bucking, same. 30 seconds to a minute depending on outside temp.
I'm the guy that didnt warm up my new west coast 461 and heat seized it. It was a sharp, hungry chain on a brand new built saw. I was pressed for time to get 4 cords of softwood out and was cutting large rounds and ripping them as fast as I could. Long story short I knew better but it was cutting awesome and I had people waiting on me. The saw was toast, completely my fault. I had Gordy repair it and it gets treated properly, warm up and cool down. It has made me a lot of money and still runs strong. I never run my good falling saws in the wood yard just like I never take a firewood saw to cut timber. Great content and am anxiously awaiting more videos on when to replace wear parts, clutches, air filters, carbs etc. I am famous for running until fail then losing time getting another saw out of the truck. Most of my fails are pistons, broken skirts, hanging a ring in a port and breaking the top of piston or simply breaking a ring. Last one was a 660, broke the wrist pin out of piston and shoved it into oil tank. God bless and stay sharp.
Fire it up & hold it wide open. If you run enough good oil, it will never be a problem. Sound crazy, but I know of many oldtimers who run modern ported saws just like that.. strongest 046 I've ever run was treated just like that every morning. That saw would spin the clutch it had so much torque.
@@kennethbrewer2495 that happened from being lean, not improper usage.. Your breaking piston problems are also from lean conditions. Too much heat... I've cut tens of millions of Mbf with 92cc stihls & have only ever blown up one of them. Happened moments after grinding through the backcut after hitting something. Too much heat turned the exhaust skirt into pebbles.
Dude I getting to log in my buffer strip area down here in Glendale Oregon I’m glad I caught onto your channel. Good educational video for a guy like me tryna do things myself
Well presented and explained, thanks mate
Great stuff. Great personality as well. Thanks for responding to my emails👍🏼
Great and informative video.
Thanks for taking time to do this.
Excellent tutorial! My first of ALL your videos I'll be watching! Thanks
Excellent discussion Gordy, keep them coming.
That's the way to do it young fella. Not real long, to the point & some real good info. I'm an old man from Northern MI. Heat w /wood and running some old saws. Probably will be doing some investigating with the old 288xp, 365 special etc. Really good info about the cross hatching etc. Keep at it. Thanks.
This is a great video. Love looking at this stuff. This is like a coroner going over a body. Great video!
Really appreciate your time and info .
Awesome video keep them coming! Waiting on the carburetor tuning video
Thanks, really liked the video you did with Jacob’s saw where you changed piston.Doesn’t look like a hard job.
Great info Gordy. I have my stock 461 that wears some WCS upgrades and the mods not only make the say run better it looks awesome too! I would like to see more on the 461 in the future as this piston tutorial was really helpful. I don’t think you ever have to worry about your TH-cam equality, it always good.
Great video for anyone new to running chainsaws.
Great tutorial Gordy. Thank you!
Outstanding teaching! Is it just me, or does anyone else see tons of comments in chainsaw videos with guys screaming that the saw needs to be leaned out?
good tip to look inside to see if a piston needs to be replaced before it gets beyond repair!
My order of operations is to start the saw first, let it warm up as I put my PPE on, then give it another minute or two before using it
Great vid man, thanks for taking the time to make it 👍🏻
Really interesting content. Thnx for taking time for the explanation and tutorial. Best wishes.
Great video Gordy I used to work on saws for friends and would find a lot of the same thing you talked about
Awesome video Gordy!! I appreciate the information and knowledge that you shared. Extremely beneficial to those of us newer to the saw game. Keep up the content even if it doesn't turn out as great as you think it should.
Nice job explaining pistons and jugs I appreciate it .and you do definitely know you saws ty. Corey. Goodrich. Ma.
Need to do one on changing over to your air filter
Those 400s port up teal nice!
some of the best explnation of pistons and how to not score it ! Love it man keep it comin. I just started my own channel few weeks back
Great video Gordy, thanks for sharing your knowledge.
Time to tear apart a few saws. 🤔
Loved this video.great content.keep em coming 👍👍👍
Great video, really enjoy watching. Thanks for sharing
Great Video Gordy!! Always love to see your content! 👍🏻👍🏻
Great video. Excellent information and easy to understand. Thanks!
Good technical break down
Really good and informative video, hope you can keep them coming
Some dam good info right there, from an old worn out MX guy your explanations are spot on. That over heated piston also looked like a 4 corner seize starting but powered though...and screwed the whole thing lol enjoyed.
Cold seizure is a good one to bring up, not talked about often and definitely something to think about with the 661 and 461.
A thought on warming up and heat in the pistons:
The crown is actually the only part of the piston that expands a great deal. Above the rings.
The crown is frequently a different diameter than the skirt to account for this. Take a 2stoke bike for example the crown is quite a bit smaller to account for this expansion.
I bought a $5 Stihl AV 034 at a yard sale. Ran for about 15 minutes after I put new mixed fuel in it before it died. Brought it to my local saw shop because I couldn't get it running, he said the rubber boot wasn't on all the way leaning it out. Bummer my good deal didn't last long. Ended up buying a used Stihl 361 from him and will rebuild the 034 with a 036 top end for the learning experience.
Hey Gordy
Greetings from Australia 🇦🇺 and thanks for a real informative video.
Cheers brp
Great video, please keep them coming, thanks for sharing
Damn that’s a clean, organized shop!
Good information
Very good video. Great information. Thanks!
Great video sharing
Good video and info. Thank you
Thank you sir well done.
Right on brother well said 💪💪👍🤙🪓
Thank you for this video gave me a lot of knowledge cuz I'm trying to learn
Great video!
9:16, had to have been a lean condition in order to create that much expansion without the jug following suit.
Most all of the older guys I've ever been around fire the saw up & peg the throttle for a good 10 seconds. These new electronic saws don't load up fuel like their formers or something. I've got a pile of 92cc stihls that were run hard off the jump every morning. Only ever blew up one of them, which was also my first port job.
Thats very interesting. Your cold siesure is common over here in Wisconsin. Especially during cold winter operations.
More great information, thanks, Gordy.
Nice. Your Failure Mode Analysis ; spot-on. Thanks. BTW, Subscribed. - N Idaho -
Like the content videos from you.
Hi Gordy Excellent information you are sharing and very well spoken.
Love all your WCS products they certainly make a big improvement on all my Stihl saws especially on 500i keep up good 👍 work and stay safe.
Good info, thanks. I've learned a lot from Donny too.
Very informative great video
Yeah Gordy, great video, start the saw then put on yer gear, save 5 Hundy the easy way.
Have been enjoying all the technical / felling videos with you and Jake and Antone.
Youre getting much better at videos, now you have a tripod 🤭
Great video really like the info great explanations
Just the info I was looking for! I do have a few questions though... open to answers from anybody
My 461 shows the kind of piston intake wear you show at 14:51, only at the very bottom of the skirt though. Otherwise the piston looks great (shiny, plenty of machining marks, no scoring).
- What does this wear pattern mean for the life of my top end?
- Is there anything I can do to minimize or prevent further wear?
- What does this wear pattern say about how the saw was used in the past?
- What does this wear pattern say about any other issues the saw might have?
This 461 was manufactured in 2020 and has really low hours on it. I was surprised to see that horizontal discoloration on the bottom of the piston on the intake side but I guess its a relief to learn that this is typical of 461s
Awesome imformative video Gordy glad to watch it!
Awesome video! Keep them coming.
just found this video and for a person who didn't know much about pistons,cylinders I learned a lot. To many times guy's who know alot get to tecnical because they figure everyone knows the lingo, the part etc.Very good video- keep them coming.
excellent video
Nothing like a good dog!
Great video! I like the technical videos!
Thanks for the information gordy
Def like the tech videos. Thanks!!
Very educational, i would b interested in more videos like this. I have 2 461’s and get my 046 back from my uncle. Very low mileage. Should have not let it go
Great video keep them coming
You share so much good info in your videos man!!
Love the videos, doing a great job man !!
I've been running the original piston in my weed eater 30 years now, accidentally seized it and covered over the ring with aluminum, cleaned that up and put a used ring in from another trash-picked trimmer, new crank bearings and it's still going strong.
Thanks for an informative video. Correct me if I'm wrong, but those types of ball hones are will not work on Nickesil plated cylinders. Secondly I've heard that when installing a new cast piston it is beneficial to heat them in an oven @450 degrees for 4 hrs an then quenching them in cold water. Have you ever done this or heard of this technique? Thanks again for sharing your knowledge.
Awesome video Gordy.
#tubesalad 😂
On the 661. Wonder if it’s possible to use a piston with higher pin and a longer rod that matches that height difference. Think there’d be less wear?
When do we get a shop tour video??