I screwed up, what now?

[TradEddie]

In advance of Tropical Storm Isaiah, I prepped my saw and after 3 days without power, the utility company finally restrung the power lines so it was safe for me to get my tree off my neighbors lawn. As I cut, I soon knew something was wrong, the saw was hard to restart and occasionally stalled at idle, but it ran and it cut. I continued for almost a tankful before darkness and the bugs forced me inside. This morning I plopped my saw on the bench for a quick sharpening, and saw its air filter sitting on top of the paint can where I left it on Monday night...

I won't post pictures, I don't want to traumatize anybody. I will only say that the cylinder side of the carb wasn't nearly as bad as I feared, but looking at the "filter" side, I'm surprised the saw was running at all.

So what do I do now? I cleaned the carb and cylinder inlet port. Do I put it all together and hope for the best, or is there anything I can do now to prevent any additional wear to piston or rings?

TE

 

[GadDummit]

You cleaned it and (hopefully) installed the air filter this time, so there isn't much else you can do. You could try to run a cylinder bore sander in it to smooth out the rough spots, but I'd imagine at this point that your rings have done that already and a sander wouldn't really do you much good. It may even loosen things up enough to make it worse.
If it were me, I'd run it till it died and count it as a lesson learned. Then buy a new saw in a year or two.

If you know a machine shop you could have the cylinder bored out and replace it with new rings/piston but that may be more expensive than a new saw depending on the model.

 

[salecker]

If the piston isn't scored all you will need is a set of rings to pep it back up.
The cylinders are lined with Nickasil,tougher then a hogs nose you didn't hurt it.
Even if the piston is scored 99% of the time the cylinder will clean up and a new piston and rings will get you back cutting.
I got a old saw from NewZealand that ran for years without a air filter.There was hardened sawdust inside the crankcase and the plating on the cylinder was wore through in a few spots.I cleaned the crankcase out found a better cylinder ,piston and a new ring and the saw runs again.It was owned by a firewooder who was old and retired,who knows how many trees that old saw chunked up while it was breathing dirty air

 

[DodgyNomad]

Sounds like you already took care of the contaminants. I'd run a 40:1 mix of synthetic oil with rec gas in it, and do a compression test. See how it behaves. You might be fine.

 

[Highbeam]

It started and ran poorly because without the restriction of an air filter the tune was lean. The lean burning is more risky than the dust of one tankful on a lawn after a rain. Since you prepped your saw, the chain was sharp and you likely didn’t even suck in any sawdust.

Clean it, put it back together, run it and forget about this.

I thought you did something serious like running straight gas!

 

[TradEddie]

It started and ran poorly because without the restriction of an air filter the tune was lean. The lean burning is more risky than the dust of one tankful on a lawn after a rain. Since you prepped your saw, the chain was sharp and you likely didn’t even suck in any sawdust.

Clean it, put it back together, run it and forget about this.

I thought you did something serious like running straight gas!

Yes, is was fortunate that I had a sharp chain, but even then it sure did suck in lots of sawdust. Nothing can be done about running it lean now, the carb cleaned up easily, no parts were left over after reassembly, and the idle and WOT rpms were exactly where they should be without any adjustment.

Thanks all for the reassurance.

TE