Chainsaw repair advice required

**Beaver** · 09-26-2015, 11:44 AM

My 20+ yo husky rancher 61 runs like a top and cuts like it should. A couple weeks ago I noticed it was over oiling the bar like mad. I pulled off the oiler and gave it a clean up and checked it out. It looked fine so I put it back on. While the saw was apart I blasters it w compressed air to clean up all the sawdust and oil. I put it all back together and added oil. The oil poured out almost as fast as I filled it. I took a look and discovered a fucking hole in the oil reservoir behind the bar adjustment screw.

Any good way to fix it? I considered just shoving something in the hole and let it leak a little but I'd rather fix it more permanently.

**capulin overdrive** · 09-26-2015, 11:47 AM

JB weld.

**XXX-er** · 09-26-2015, 12:35 PM

an aluminium tank or magniesium?

You could fix that with some kind of epoxy, back in the day i fixed a smashed engine side cover on my suziki dirt bike with a tube of devcon liquid aluminium , I got the area really clean and built up layers of liquid aluminium used heat lamp to get it curing faster ... worked fine

**iceman** · 09-26-2015, 12:54 PM

Sugru is pretty great shit. Just mush it on there and let it dry.

**Kufo** · 09-26-2015, 01:22 PM

I second that - jb weld

**that dude who did that thing** · 09-26-2015, 01:33 PM

I third the JB Weld, it's the shit.

**Beaver** · 09-26-2015, 03:20 PM

Tried jb putty. It fell out into the reservoir. I can't have any on the outside of the saw because the adluster bolt runs through a though above the hole. My finger is too short by a good 25.4 mm (inch) so I used a spoke down the centre of a price of rope to apply pressure on the back of the hole.

Liquid aluminium might be the next try.

**that dude who did that thing** · 09-26-2015, 04:04 PM

Sounds like you didn't clean the inside of the oil reservoir before attempting the repair? You're going to need clean surfaces for JBWeld or liquid aluminum to stick to. Oil is, you know, slippery.

I'm not quite following on why you can't have JBWeld or another material on the outside. A thin skim of JBWeld shouldn't interfere with anything. (But I haven't so much as looked at a chainsaw in 20 years, so what the fuck do I know).

**Meadow Skipper** · 09-26-2015, 06:01 PM

Nothing's gonna stick to an oily surface, or even with a trace of residue. Is it impossible to remove and replace the tank?

**XXX-er** · 09-26-2015, 06:37 PM

Duno if its the same design but I looked very quickly at my sthil 261 and the oil tank looks to be part of the engine casting

you would need to get that area VERY clean with acetone to get anything sticking to it, probably some kind of a patch that "locks" to the hole with the product inside & outside to keep it in the hole

**Beaver** · 09-26-2015, 06:57 PM

I decided fuck it and put a huge glob in the channel that the bar tension nut runs through. Now I've lost a bit of adjustability in my bar, when my chain stretches I'm going to have to replace it earlier.

I trimmed a beer bottle cap to fit into the oiler reservoir, I screwed the cap to a stick ant put it in the reservoir with the stick sticking out through the oil filler hole. I strapped that in place so the cap made a solid backing then packed in the putty. It hasn't fallen out yet.

The reservoir should have been clean, I soaked it in gasoline then dried I with compressed air.

I'm trying it out tomorrow.