Stihl 038 Super quandary...

[cathead]

A friend of mine stopped by because he needed help with his relatively new Stihl homeowner grade saw.
He was having trouble with the start switch assembly so ended up safety wiring the control so it would stay in place.
Also I took a look at the bar tensioning assembly and was not much impressed there either. I'm glad I run
older Stihl saws as they seem to be constructed better. In return for my help, he dropped off an old Stihl 032
that needed a lot of attention. As it turned out after getting it running, the ignition was suffering from intermittent
problems. Not wanting to spend any money on an old(this model is hard to work on) Stihl 032AVE, I removed
the coil and heated it to 250F in the oven for 45 minutes. This morning. I reassembled the saw and it
fired right up with no hesitation so expect it will cut some wood today. The 031 and 032 are hard to work
on because so much disassembly is required to accomplish the simplest things.
My favorites in older Stihl saws are the 028 and 038 for being easy to work on and also dependable
for general firewood cutting. It looks like a nice day in the north country so expect I will do some sawing.

 

[cathead]

Hopefully this is my last Stihl 032 post. As it turned out, the saw started missing again while sawing.
Early each morning I give another go at it. This time I tested the capacitor and it showed some resistance.
So did several other of the same Stihl capacitors so apparently they have a resistor built in possibly. Anyway,
I picked the used spare that had the most kick with the ohm meter and put that one in as well as cleaning
the points again and also wiping them off with laquer thinner and a Q-tip. Now it seems to run OK but
the true test will to see if it will cut a pile of wood without acting up. Sorry to bore you with the details...