Subject: Re: Help with Old Chainsaw?

From: [email-masked] (Chris Lewis)
Date: Sat, 13 Aug 1994 02:26:04 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>,
Michael P Roy <[email-masked]> wrote:
>I have inherited an old chainsaw from my uncle and I would really
>enjoy getting it running again. The saw is:

>Pioneer Model RA - Ser #19481 with ~28 inch bar
>Manufactured by IEL (Industrial Engineering Limited) Vancouver BC
>Fairbanks Morse & Co - RA140 is stamped on the recoil starter cover.
>RA450A-B and Pat#2733008 is stamped on the carburetor

>The saw is really in excellent shape, except it doesn't run, (actually
>it runs great when gas is poured into the carb) so what I need is
>some replacement parts for the carburetor (fuel pump diaphragms).

I've acquired a similar Pioneer saw with a similar problem.  It was
picked up by a friend for $5 at a garage sale, and I traded him for a
extra drafting table top I picked up... ;-)  Mine's 60CC with a
bar rather smaller than the original according to a small-engine
guy.  If I've got the names straight, Pioneer was originally HQ'd in
Peterborough Ontario Canada, and merged with Chrysler OMC many years ago,
Then died out.

My particular saw was a commercial-duty unit - the small-engine guy
said that he used them way up north in commercial logging and firewood
production.  Probably on the order of 30-40 years old.  In pretty good
condition too, considering....  Drive in good shape, no rust, clean,
no significant wear other than flaking off paint etc.  The chain was
even still sharp...

I did some fiddling around with it, and the primer host burst and sprayed
me in the face.  This is when I took it in to the small-engine guy...
He took one look at it and laughed - "how much money have you sunk into
this monster?"  "None" I says.  "Keep it that way!" he says.  

Parts for these units are really hard to come by.  Your best bet is to
scrounge thru small-engine shop's discard piles and see if you can
find a similar unit you can use for spares.

He said it was a really good solid saw in its day, so I thought I'd
sink a little more time into it and bought the tubing it needed.  Partly
because I'm thinking of making a chain saw mill, and he said it was
the perfect saw for it - gobs of power, short stroke, relatively slow
RPMs.  An equivalent new saw suitable for log ripping was in the $600+ range.

The saw would prime and fire up really well, but die as soon as I
stopped pumping, and I couldn't really figure out what was going on.  So,
I say, "what the heck", and took it in again, asking the guy to stop
if it got to the point of needing "original" parts rather than standard
off the shelf items.

As it turned out, while I had found one good fuel line and filter
in the gas tank, it was only for the primer, and the main feed tubing
had completely disintegrated.  After he replaced the tubing, the in-tank
filter, the starter rope (which I hadn't seen was on the verge of breaking),
and adjusting the fuel mixture, the thing works perfectly.

So, before assuming that it's hard to get specific parts, check out the
fuel supply lines...  I got lucky, and for a total investment of about
$35 in standard off-the-shelf parts (tubing, filters, pull cord) and a
knowledgeable small-engine guy's labour, I have a reliable and very powerful
saw.  Goes through maple logs faster than I've ever seen a saw go
before...

Heavy and loud tho...  (parting shot from the small-engine guy as
I was leaving with the repaired saw "Make *damn* sure you wear your
hearing protection with that thing!")
-- 
Chris Lewis: _Una confibula non sat est_
Phone: Canada 613 832-0541  Ferret list: [email-masked]
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