reviving a dead chain saw

Reviving a Dead Chain Saw

This article will cover reviving a old 041 Stihl chain saw from the dead. I had purchased it used, (rebuilt by an employee of a power saw shop) in about 1971. This model was only made from 1967 to 1975. At that time it was fairly new, (only about a year or so old then) but apparently was used by a timber faller in a logging operation, where it would have been ran every day, and was traded it in for a new one. I had traded spotting scope for this power saw. This saw was made before they made power saws Anti-Vibration models (handles being rubber mounted). It was only made for 8 years, therefore it become obsolete early on. It became commonly known as the OLD 041, when the 041AV came into being.

I had built our house, which had 2 fireplaces, (one in the basement and another in the living room) so it (this saw) was initially used to cut firewood during those years. I was employed in a large portable saw mill at the time, so I had access to a lot of small surplus firewood.

Then, I had recently bought about 5 acres of logged off land adjacent to my existing property. My 12 year old son wanted to earn some money, and there was a lot of dead Douglas fir tops, Alder and Maple trees that had got knocked down in the cat logging process. There was a lot of "cat" roads left on this property and I had an small old Gibson tractor with a small single axle trailer that he would use to haul the firewood that he had cut up to our property where he sold it. He was a pretty responsible boy, and he was well versed on all the proper safety operations. The wife and I felt that he was mature enough to undertake this on his own. He proved us right.

Later, when running a gunshop where I had a 4 spindle stock carver machine. Here we used this saw along with two Stihl 090 saws (the largest saw that Stihl made) to cut/rip large walnut trees into 2 1/2" thick and full log width by 7 1/2' long slabs to be dried and later used for making gunstocks. Many of these trees were over 3' in diameter and a few 5' in diameter. We traveled all over SW Washington, into Oregon and California procuring large walnut trees. In the end, I had a whole barn full of this wood that was curing (it took a year to dry 1" of wood). My son still has a LARGE HEAVY coffee table that he made from one of these.

Later in life, (like 35 years) this saw came out of retirement and was again put to work cutting firewood off a neighbor's property after it was logged off. Here we, (our Masonic Lodge) agreed to clean up what was left on the two landings, that being butt cuts, swelled butts, rotted butts and broken tops. We needed finances to replace our lodge building's roof. I was instrumental in getting this done, but not without the help of my old pal the 041. Here I pretty well cut all of this wood into blocks by myself, with me being retired, and close enough to where I could spend an hour or so at a time on this project. Here, I would cut and split a 1 cord trailer load and sell it either by delivering, or letting the purchaser take the loaded trailer, then bring back my trailer.

But I did have some help later, cleaning up both landings and finally splitting OVER 18 cords of firewood. Some of these butt cuts were over three feet in diameter. Here, this old saw again really got a work out.

In the RH photo below you can see one of the three piles of split wood that was the result of what we had to move for the reforestation. I had already sold a considerable amount from just my sawing/splitting onsite. In this photo, I did the loading, and offloading the split wood, then throwing it onto the piles, with my wife assisting by running the hydraulic splitter, which sped the process up considerably.

Here I am in the process of making a lot of sawdust .	Here, my wife is helping spit some blocks while sitting in her electric wheelchair

However in the process of cutting all this firewood, this saw, being heavily worked again, and getting old, needed repairs. The saw shop shuttered when I brought it in, because of it's age. They managed to get it repaired, but they told me that the next time, maybe I had better consider retiring it as parts were LONG obsolete and the saw was getting tired. Then before long, the starter was beginning to not engage. They said SORRY as the Nylon inner spool was obsolete, however they did find one in another shop for me, but they did not want to install it. OK, I got it going for a few more days of sawing.

Nearing the end of this job this saw actually broke apart, but this time some of the screws vibrated loose enough, allowing the rear cover/handle to become loose enough that the lower handle mounting boss became broken off. Here the cover's center mounting holes were wore oversize which contributed to the demise, allowing the whole cover/handle to almost fall off, to where the saw was non-operable. I then borrowed a neighbors saw to finish the job on the larger cuts that my little 021 saw could not do.

We had not got all this wood cut/split or sold when we were informed that ALL the wood had to be removed so the reforestation workers could move in and replant new trees as the winter set in. This involved a mad scramble by many of our lodge members loading and hauling the cut blocks to my property so the final splitting could be done later.

I had stacked one cord of this wood (4'X4' X8'), and then loaded it into this old Chevy pickup bed trailer by just throwing it in the newly made side racks as seen in the RH photo below. Using this method, knowing that our customers got a full cord of wood without us having to stacking (measuring) every load.

Here I am with the 041 & an 021 while moving a load to be split later	Here one cord of firewood ready to sell

This broken saw then sat for a while (like maybe a couple of years or so), I took pity on it, and had the broken parts Heli-Arc welded, with the wallowed out holes also welded up. It then sat apart on the floor of my shop collecting dust for another number of years (maybe another 5 or so) as I had then became 24 hour caregiver for my wife.

It has good compression, a fairly new roller tip 26" bar, and chain only about 1/4 worn, a new fuel filter/pickup tube, new starter spool, new air filter, a used better flywheel (with all the cooling fins), and otherwise now in pretty good condition for it's age. And the old rusty muffler after a patch weld job competed the repairs. The only thing missing while in it's "storage" under may work bench were some screws and the ignition switch, (which I found on eBay for $10.95), along with 5 special anti vibration Stihl lock screws at another $10.

The issue in repairing it was that these welded up wallowed out holes on the rear cover plate that bolted to the cylinder head, needed to be drilled pretty precise to the right locations otherwise the starter assembly might not fit. Along with that it also needed to be aligned with the gas tank mounting holes AND the handle that was also attached to this plate. Therefore, these two cover plate holes had to be pretty precisely located, BUT with no visual way of locating them.

Finally it dawned on me to make some short threaded studs that fit the threaded head mounting holes. These studs were lathe turned with small sharp points on the outer end. In use, screw one stud into one of the threaded head holes, bolt this welded rear cover plate onto the starter/fuel tank, and bolt things lightly in position, then tap the rear of this cover with a hammer so that the point of the stud leaves an imprint in the welded up aluminum hole. Using this indent as a reference point, drill this hole out, then remove the stud, place it in the second hole, then place the cover onto the cylinder head, and this time also securing it in the first hole by a bolt. Tap it again, this gave me pretty close locations for drilling out the these new attachment holes.

The lower broken handle boss that was also built back up with aluminum weld that then was machined down back to close its size, and by using the other remaining opposite side boss's hole for an alignment jig, the new lower handle attachment hole was drilled.

This handle unit was basically held on by these two bolts in the cylinder head, supplemented by another four secondary ones into the starter/fuel tank base.

OH, by the way, the two threaded holes in the cylinder head were partly stripped out (worse on one than the other), (probably partly the reason for this failure to start with), requiring me to replace the threads using the Heli-Coil process (6mm X 10) before the above other repair was done.

Here is the welded cover from the front, showing the bright spots where the weld was done & filed down to fit	Here is the same cover from the rear, showing the added lower mounting boss built up with weld. The large round hole is the spark plug location

OK, I finally got everything aligned and temporarily re-installed enough to be sure everything fit. Then disassemble, sand it down and find the proper paint to do this old saw justice and to gain Her Majesty the dignity that SHE (at 50 plus years) deserves.

Here my old pal, rebuilt & just waiting for a new paint job

The paint for this old saw, especially the red was unknown even by an old time Stihl dealership, so I had to have some mixed for a close match. The gray color that was very close was Navy Gray.

Here is the LH side view of the rebuild	Here is the RH side view of the rebuild

Here is just a small portion of the total wood cut, just the final clean up with this probably only 20% of what was to start with, on this one of two landings
.

OK, I got the repair job done, repainted and reassembled and the chain filed (sharpened) along with reducing the chain raker height. The original thought was to retire it and hang it on the wall in my barn with the other old time logging gear that I have accumulated. But it now still runs, (and surprisingly well) kind of like the Energizer Bunny. However at my age now being 86, maybe that original idea is not so bad after all. Lots of memories are tied to that old saw.

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