Stihl flippy caps - DISLIKE!

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quads

quads

Minister of Fire
Nov 19, 2005
2,744
Central Sands, Wisconsin
Really starting to get fed up with the Stihl flippy caps. At about 1 year old the caps on my 260 Pro were beginning to seep on my workbench overnight. I replaced the o-rings on them, and that seems to have cured the seeping problem with the oil cap, but the gas cap still does it at times. I think the 'flippy' mechanism is getting worn and not putting enough pressure to seal tightly. As I set here, taking a break for lunch, pants reeking of the gasoline that has seeped on me throughout the morning, wishing it had the old-fashioned screw type caps. I guess I will have to talk to my dealer and see how much a new gas cap costs. An over-engineered, more complicated than it needs to be, and almost certainly more expensive, mistake Stihl has made. An otherwise flawless saw tainted by such a simple thing as a gas cap........
 
My oil cap has a slow leak on the 361. It will seep out onto the bench unless i store the saw with the caps facing up. The o-ring *looks* fine, so I'm not sure if it is worn or the cap doesn't create enough pressure on the seal when in the closed position.
 
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I have yet to have one leak.:cool:
 
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I haven't had one leak but one did get out of time, it took forever to fix. :mad:
 
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Dairyman said:
I haven't had one leak but one did get out of time, it took forever to fix. :mad:
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I've had this happen too, takes a while to figure out whats up with it. Put up with a leaky oil cap on my MS210, finally broke down and bought one off ebay for $10. Fixed for now.
The screw caps are not always perfect eigher, the gas cap on my makita 6401 leaks more than it likes to seal - o-rings fine, it just seams really sensitive to tightness and dust build up.
 
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Yup, the o-rings were hard, especially the oil one, so I replaced them. That fixed the oil seeping problem, and seemed like it was going to help the gas seeping problem, but no. It still seeps now and then. Not all the time though, which makes me think the mechanism isn't pushing tightly anymore. It flips quite easily too. I think it's just getting worn out, I use my saw nearly everyday, all year. Maybe if I dig around in my junk I can find a slightly thicker o-ring to try, otherwise I'll take a trip to the Stihl dealer one of these days.
 
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OK, so here I go again. I'm a professional cutter and get lots of use out of my saws. The caps can be irritating to say the least. I'm still working with some of the pre-recall caps, they seep oil & gas. The fuel is making them deform due to what ever they put in it. I'm not sure what a good solution is but STIHL has made an error in design for sure. They really messed up by not including the saws in the recall, once they saw a problem they should have stepped up and covered the saws too....
 
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I've got an old 026 parts saw, and if the fuel tank looked similar, I'd be willing to try to put it on the MS260. But it doesn't look like it would fit. :-(
 
RNLA said:
OK, so here I go again. I'm a professional cutter and get lots of use out of my saws. The caps can be irritating to say the least. I'm still working with some of the pre-recall caps, they seep oil & gas. The fuel is making them deform due to what ever they put in it. I'm not sure what a good solution is but STIHL has made an error in design for sure. They really messed up by not including the saws in the recall, once they saw a problem they should have stepped up and covered the saws too....
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The saw caps are not the same as the Trimmer/Blower caps. They DO interchange sometimes but there are small details that are different. Different part #'s hence the saws were not included in the recall.

O-rings do wear as quads found out. As much as it sounds like he uses his saw, I'm surprised he made it this far... lol. Screw type caps automatically compensate for O-ring wear...
 
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It would be nice if the flippy caps had an adjustment on them, like a lock-nut in the middle that could be tightened slightly to take-up the slack caused by wear in the mechanism, similar to the drain plug in the bottom of my rowboat. But upon further inspection of the cap, no such luck.......
 
Does seem strange to change a tried and true system (screw caps) - at some point, a lot of engineers were sitting in dozens of meetings with marketing folks, etc., having big discussions of how to make the caps 'better'........hmmmmm............
 
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NH_Wood said:
Does seem strange to change a tried and true system (screw caps) - at some point, a lot of engineers were sitting in dozens of meetings with marketing folks, etc., having big discussions of how to make the caps 'better'........hmmmmm............
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EXACTLY!
 
Hmmm...Year 5 with my 361 - No issues with leakage (except the one time that I did not get them in correctly - user error). So that would roughly be 25-30 cords of cutting.
 
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The machines behind the flippy caps make em worth the trouble. I hate it when I'm in a hurry to get runnin again and to pause to think about which way to stick it in the hole...ok now- black faces which way?
I managed to break one of my flippies the other day. AND the ebay flippy, I bought as a replacement,.... was the wrong size. LUCKILY the local dealers keep plenty in stock and it only cost about $6.00.
 
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Jags said:
Hmmm...Year 5 with my 361 - No issues with leakage (except the one time that I did not get them in correctly - user error). So that would roughly be 25-30 cords of cutting.
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Mine is a 260, probably twice as many cord, but only a year old Last January.
 
surviverguy said:
The machines behind the flippy caps make em worth the trouble. I hate it when I'm in a hurry to get runnin again and to pause to think about which way to stick it in the hole...ok now- black faces which way?
I managed to break one of my flippies the other day. AND the ebay flippy, I bought as a replacement,.... was the wrong size. LUCKILY the local dealers keep plenty in stock and it only cost about $6.00.
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I've never had any trouble getting it in the right way. Sometimes if the oil tank is a little too full I have to goosh some out to get the cap in, but otherwise this operator has never made any errors concerning the flippy caps. HAHA!
 
i was getting some stuff at ace and decided to look at the stihl display and almost all the saws got a toolless adjuster for the chain/bar, boy i hope its not like the one on my craftsman chainsaw, gotta adjust it every 10 minutes its real hassle. Anyone have any first hand experiance with the stihl toolless adjuster?
 
greythorn3 said:
i was getting some stuff at ace and decided to look at the stihl display and almost all the saws got a toolless adjuster for the chain/bar, boy i hope its not like the one on my craftsman chainsaw, gotta adjust it every 10 minutes its real hassle. Anyone have any first hand experiance with the stihl toolless adjuster?
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Excellent system that positively locks in the adjustment. Keep the mechanism clean and you'll like it. Very different than the POS Craftsman/Poulan system that will NEVER hold an adjustment.
 
Nine years on my MS440 only time I had a problem it was me trying to be in a hurry. I was cutting and felt something on my boot. the plus side is my left boot will never squeek and is waterproof. The bad part was getting all the chips out of the oil tank thakfully they float.
 
Caps are junk! Twice had the oil cap not take correctly and dump fresh loads of bar oil onto the ground and my boots. Found that the oil cap needs to be turned slightly counter-clockwise first, then clockwise then flip the cap. Gas just clockwise then flip the cap. Or was it the other way around?? POS system. Makes me appreciate the Husqvarna even more. Only bought the Stihl because I ran across a used one for a decent price. Would sell for the same I paid at this point and put it towards another Husky.

Here is the visual of what happens:
 

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Well actually, I have never had a problem with getting the caps in right and staying in, the problem I have is they don't seal tight. I didn't use the saw yesterday or today, and just walked past it setting on the workbench in the garage. Smells like gas and sure enough, the gas cap has been seeping/leaking ever so slightly over the last two days. Didn't even have much gas in it when I put it away the other day, just barely up over the bottom lip of the cap and it still seeps.
 
Mine have been getting worse ever year. I would like to fix um. Is there a Stihl upgrade that is better than the original? Or just fresh ones that work better for a while?

Tom
 
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If new o-rings doesn't cure the seepeage then you may have worn the cams in the cap down some. Repalcing the caps isn't expensive at all.
 
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