Tale of woe part one

[Dune]

So my new to me Homelite XP is blown after one cut.

I cleaned everything, sanded the bar from rust, sharpened the chain
The saw ran well and took a good cut.
My son was running it.
He said it felt really hot. He shut it down and it seized.

I mixed 1 once of two stroke oil per quart of gas.
I did use high test gas, could that have caused this?
I warmed the motor for at least a minute before sawing,
Could it be that the saw is so old that it needed leaded gas?

I checked out in the back shed and it turned out I had another XP
It runs fine but I don't want to blow it up too.
Anyone have a clue?

Thanks

 

[ericm979]

High octane won't blow up a motor. More like the opposite. No two stroke needs leaded fuel.

"felt really hot" probably means the engine was running lean. That could be from an air leak or the carb not getting enough fuel due to a blockage between the tank and the high speed jet.

A 16:1 fuelil ratio is a lot of oil. That will lean out the fuel:air ratio. Probably not enough to seize it by itself but it would make an existing leanness worse.

 

[DodgyNomad]

Agree with the above, although I believe that's 32:1 on the oil, which shouldn't have hurt anything. No need for leaded, high octane shouldn't have hurt it.

I'd guess it was too lean as well, or the motor was somewhat hurt already.

 

[salecker]

Any old saw that has been sitting for a while should get a good inspection ,including a pressure and vacuum test.
I get lots of saws that i don't have any history on
so the first thing i do is pull the muffler and inspect the piston,then a vacuum test.
If it fails i will pull the flywheel and clutch to check if the seals are the reason for the vacuum leak.
And continue from there to see if it's going to be a runner or a project.

 

[MongoMongoson]

I run a Super XLAO. It has mixture screws for both idle and high rpm. You didn't say anything about adjusting the mixture. You will want to make sure the mixture is not too lean. I need to adjust mine as temperature changes. It runs lean at cold temperatures, so I need to adjust it for a richer burn. I run mine at 32:1. On the gas cap it tells you to run 16:1 but that was 45+ years ago. Oil has changed a lot since then.