https://www.facebook.com/980213175184279/

Meadow Vista Saw, 17475 LAKEVIEW HILLS Road, Meadow Vista, CA (2026)

10/22/2026

Sometimes I receive a chainsaw project in a box or one of those 5-gallon pails. Somebody started troubleshooting and gave up.

In the worst cases, the saw has been left without a spark plug or carburetor, exposing the inside of the engine to the elements. Many of those can’t be saved.

I keep a completely seized MS 290 crankshaft, with the piston still attached, on my workbench to show people what happens when moisture gets inside an engine that sits unused for a long, long time. The bearings are so stiff that the entire crankshaft, connecting rod, and piston assembly is rigid.

The owner of this saw got lucky. The spark plug had been left out—and was completely missing—and the box had definitely been stored somewhere without humidity control. But the engine wasn’t seized.

As a precaution, I squirted a little two-stroke oil into the combustion chamber before moving the piston to give the top end some lubrication. I didn’t know yet that the piston was scored, but this is a good habit whenever I encounter an engine that hasn’t been started in a long time and may have been exposed to moisture.

As with some other saws you’ve seen on my page, compression came in at a reasonable 140 psi. But I noticed the side screws for the muffler brace were missing. Those holes lead directly into the oil tank, so the bar oil likely would’ve leaked out over time.

Predictably, the oil tank was empty.

I poured the fuel into a glass jar to inspect it, and it didn’t look like a proper 50:1 mix.

Anyway, those missing screws made me check the actual muffler screws, which were loose. My spidey senses were definitely tingling at this point, so I removed the muffler to inspect the piston.

Yep, it was scored.

I explained to the customer that the Husqvarna 359 is a very good professional saw and definitely worth a top-end rebuild.

I also warned him that if the bearings weren’t smooth, rebuilding the bottom end probably wouldn’t make financial sense given the saw’s overall value. I don’t want a customer spending more on repairs than the saw is worth unless there’s some sentimental value involved.

This one came from a yard sale. No sentimental value at all.

I also showed him the modified aftermarket muffler, which should give it a little more power. Kind of cool.

He was on board with a rebuild as long as it wasn’t too costly. I explained that the only way to know was to remove and inspect the piston and check the bearings. He told me to proceed.

Well, it turned out the piston had only minor heat scoring and was completely clean on the intake side.

A good habit when I’m unsure whether the crank seals need replacing is to remove the clutch before removing the cylinder. It’s much easier while the cylinder is still installed because I can use compression, a piston stop, or rope inserted into the combustion chamber to provide resistance while loosening the clutch.

Once the cylinder is off, getting that resistance becomes a lot more of a hassle.

Anyway, after removing the clutch, flywheel, cylinder, and piston, I could finally check the bearings for grinding, resistance, or other signs of damage. Of course, I thoroughly cleaned and lubricated them first.

Smooth as silk. The bottom end is good to go.

I dug around on my shelf and found a Husqvarna 357 XP cylinder kit. For those who don’t know, the 357 and 359 share the same chassis, so there’s a choice of cylinders when doing a rebuild. Although the 357 has a 1 mm smaller bore, its cylinder and piston design favors high-RPM horsepower. The 359 has the bigger bore, but it isn’t quite as much of a hot rod.

In my earlier years of repairing chainsaws, I thought the bigger bore was the advantage. Since then, I’ve learned that the 357 is actually the hotter saw.

So I’m going to build this one back as a 357 XP. It won’t have the crank stuffers that come in the 357, but it should still be a more enjoyable saw to use.

Curious about what crank stuffers do? Ask in the comments, and I’ll explain it there.

Since there’s evidence of heat scoring, leaking crank seals are one possible explanation for the overheating. I’m going to rebuild the top end, then check the crank seals for leaks.

10/22/2026

Checking compression first is a good habit for any small engine mechanic. There’s no magic number that applies to every engine. Each has its own healthy range.

Unlike the saw in the previous post, where a reading around 140 psi was enough to make me remove the muffler and inspect the piston, this Echo blower normally operates at lower compression. For this one, 120 psi is perfectly fine, so I’d skip removing the muffler and focus on the carburetor instead.

These Echo motors can run just fine even at 110 psi. Obviously, I’d prefer to see a higher reading, but I wouldn’t throw one away or rebuild it based on compression alone.

The carburetor on this one definitely needed some love. Although the air filter was dirty, it was still doing its job. There wasn’t much debris getting past it. Thankfully, I had a new air filter in stock, so the customer could take the blower home and keep using it without delay.

When I rebuild one of these carburetors, I heat a little screwdriver with my torch and plunge it into the plastic plugs covering the adjustment screws. I wait until the screwdriver cools, then yank the plug out. That exposes the little slotted adjustment screws so I can fine-tune the carburetor once the unit is reassembled.

To meet the EPA 300-hour standard, a lot of these carburetors are tuned quite lean. This works fine when the unit is new, but not so well when it gets older and needs a slightly richer fuel mixture. Removing the fuel mix adjustment limiters is a common part of my maintenance so I have enough tuning range to restore some of the motor’s original power.

With chainsaws, I also remove them to give me enough tuning range to compensate for any mods I’m making to the saw.

10/22/2026

This Husqvarna 562 XP came in with inconsistent starting issues. I started it up, and sometimes it would rev; other times, it would bog. It wouldn’t idle very well, and once it died, it was hard to restart.

Always wanting to start with the simplest solutions, I took it to a long pine log and made a lengthwise cut. One way to calibrate these AutoTune saws is to make an exceptionally long cut at full throttle. After a few seconds of continuous cutting, the saw goes into calibration mode. It needs to keep running under load during that process, so an 8-foot log is about perfect.

The calibration didn’t help, so onto the workbench it went.

The first thing I checked was compression. At just under 140 psi, it wasn’t terrible, but I’d still expect better than that from a healthy 562 XP. It was enough to make me suspicious and pull the muffler.

And that’s when I saw it.

Scored piston. Sigh.

Well, at least we know why it’s running funny. Time to discuss a few options with the customer about how to move forward.

10/20/2026

Remember the MS 291 with the rainbow clutch and the absolutely destroyed piston?

Well, the new piston kit & crank seals arrived yesterday and I couldn’t wait to put it together.

Since I had already cleaned & prepared the crankshaft and bearings, didn’t take long to put the seals and piston on. I applied Motoseal to the crank case base and to the bottom of the cylinder. A lot of mechanics don’t apply Motoseal or gasket maker in the semi circles where the crank seals go, but I like the added security of having gasket maker in there.

I will use regular Permatex high temp gasket maker on the intake, boot and other areas where ease of removal is a priority. But for the cylinder base, I prefer the highly adhesive and quick drying Motoseal even though it’s a hellish mess to remove if you ever have to undo your work. I love the strength and the adhesion and the permanence of it.

With the 291, the carburetor fuel mix limiters are metal studs that go into the spot where the mix screws are. Instead of removing the screw guides that these pins interfere with, making the carburetor harder to tune from then on, I prefer to remove the pins themselves. I do this by punching holes in the center of each of them, and then putting them on the drill press and drilling them out. Sometimes I have to use a burr grinder on my rotary tool to finish the job, but this time the drill press did it all.

I will always rebuild the carburetor whenever I take a part of motor because I’ve got the carburetor in my hands and it feels like good honest work to make sure that the carburetor is clean and healthy before I put it back. It’s included in the labor, not extra.

I didn’t have any OEM air filters in stock, but I had one by Stens for half the price and offered it to the customer. It’s so much better than the existing air filter and he went for it enthusiastically. We both want this song to live a long, healthy life from now on.

I did some fine-tuning in an old dry oak log. The saw performed perfectly. It’s ready to go home!

10/19/2026

I get to see all kinds of crazy stuff in this business. In this example, a company had its employees use this brand new Stihl MS194t chainsaw to cut through a tar shingle roof, absolutely ruining the chain and bar and doing quite a number on the rest of the powerhead.

Then, to their credit, they gave the saw to one of their employees who brought it to me to see if it could be restored for personal use. Since the saw was given to him, he had a little extra budget for modification as well. I suggested replacing the tar-coated muffler with the Westcoast Saw billet aluminum, high flow muffler for more power. he also opted for the three-point felling dogs.

Most of the labor was spent, scraping tar out from between the cylinder cooling fins, from the brake band area, and from the clutch and brake doesn’t cover area. I also hit the clutch drum with the bench grinder wire wheel to get tar off of that. All of this was meant to reduce interference of the tar buildup on the function of the saw and to ensure that the engine is able to cool itself efficiently.

I didn’t do any cosmetic cleanup because nobody wants to pay mechanic rates for a glorified car wash.

The rest of the work was generally going through the saw to make sure it’s going to be reliable. And then installing the mods and re-retuning the carburetor for maximum power.

I also offered the customer an array of options for bar/chain and he wisely chose the pro level parts.

It has become a very peppy little saw that is going to last him for a long, long time.

10/19/2026

This customer brought in five chainsaws for repair. The smallest of the bunch was this MS 250, which has obviously had a very hard life.

They said it would start intermittently and didn’t run very well. I lifted the air filter cover and could see that it really needed some love.

The customer also wanted me to explore modification options to get more power out of it. The other saws they dropped off included an MS 661 with a bark box, an 064 AV, and a Husqvarna 562 XP. I don’t know why they needed more power from this one, but I’m happy to oblige. 😆👍🏼

First, I needed to get it running properly. Only then would we consider any mods. The carburetor definitely needed a rebuild, and obviously, the whole area around it needed a good cleaning.

A new air filter and spark plug were also needed.

To accommodate any muffler porting, and generally allow maximum adjustability, I removed the fuel mix adjustment limiters from the carb. In this case, since it was a Zama carburetor, all I had to do was pull the roll pin out of the carburetor frame right next to the high-speed adjustment screw. That gave me the full tuning range again.

The saw started up well and tuned reliably. Thankfully, I’d put the bar and chain back on, because I noticed the chain wouldn’t stop moving—even at low RPMs.

That pointed to a few possibilities: weak clutch springs allowing the clutch to engage the drum at low RPMs, something interfering with the drum bearing, or a worn-out bearing.

When I opened up the clutch area, the problem was obvious. There was stringy fiber wrapped around the crankshaft at the bearing.

Once I removed that, I found yet another layer of wire or fiber wrapped deeper into the bearing. I removed all of it and checked the bearing, which seemed to be OK. Then I reassembled everything and retested.

The clutch works fine now.

There aren’t many options for porting the muffler on a 250. There’s no room along the sides to add a deflector without touching plastic, so the available area to open it up is the front. I typically carve a rectangular opening slightly smaller than the spark arrester so it’ll still sit securely after the mod.

Then I use a slotted screwdriver to open up the deflector holes a little. That combination significantly improves flow, and the muffler is only slightly louder than before because the internal deflector is still in place.

You can tell by the acceleration of this little 46 cc chainsaw how different it is from a stock 250.

The customer is going to be very happy.

10/18/2026

Customer brought in this Stihl BR800 explaining that it had stopped running so he ordered an entirely new unbranded knock off motor and installed it, and it still won’t run.

😮😮😮

“And you want ME to figure it out??”

Oh Lordy. 🙄😆😆

10/18/2026

In my opinion, the Stihl MS-400c is one of the best chainsaws ever made. They’re being phased out and replaced with several new models as Stihl renovates their product line. The closest that product line comes to matching the 400c is the 400.1 and it’s an entirely new design.

If you look on FB Marketplace, you’re unlikely to find a 400c because once you get one, it’s super unlikely you (or anyone) will sell it. And, as with any well regarded saw that’s not going to be available much longer, all the new ones have been snapped up and hoarded. In addition to my own beloved 400c, I have a new one in the box that is not for sale. ✌🏼😆

The remainder of the maintenance parts for the Western States Endurance Run trail managers came in a few days ago and I was finally able to finish assembly and recalibrate the carbs.

They’re ready to be hiked miles into remote trails and put back to work!

10/17/2026

Wood splitters take up a LOT of space in my driveway so I usually make customers wait to bring them in until I have space available

10/17/2026

A customer brought in this Echo CS-310 with a broken handle. He said it hadn’t been serviced in a long time, so I could go ahead and address the carburetor as well.

The CS-310, kind of like the Stihl MS 170, is an entry-level chainsaw, and these little saws tend to take a beating.

Customers will often replace a cheap-o chainsaw rather than repair it, so I really applaud and respect this customer for bringing his in instead of throwing it away. Repairing isn’t always cheaper than replacing, but keeping a useful tool out of the waste stream is worth something, too.

The OEM handle cost $44 from sawagain.com and arrived in just a few days. Obviously, it fit perfectly, but whatever broke the handle had also stretched the upper anti-vibe spring slightly out of shape. It was still doing its job, so I didn’t see a reason to replace it.

I’m glad he let me get into the carburetor, because the air filter clearly wasn’t doing its job. A tremendous amount of debris had been getting through the carburetor and into the engine.

The diaphragms were also getting a little stiff, so I installed a carburetor rebuild kit and removed the fuel mix adjustment limiters to give me the full tuning range.

One surprise was a bend at the base of the bar. The customer insisted he’d recently replaced it. I explained that it only takes one incident to bend a bar, and this one was definitely bent.

Later, he texted back saying he’d had a senior moment: he’d actually replaced only the chain, not the bar. He was fine with replacing the bar if I had one available. 😆😉

Lucky for us, I happened to have one, and I just charged him the Home Depot price for it.

Obviously, I also replaced the air filter. No point cleaning everything up just to keep feeding it dirt.

The repair ended up a little expensive thanks to a couple of pricey parts, but the saw came out great. He was thrilled when he picked it up the next morning.

Meadow Vista Saw

10/22/2026

10/22/2026

10/22/2026

10/20/2026

10/19/2026

10/19/2026

10/18/2026

10/18/2026

10/17/2026

10/17/2026

Address

Telephone

Website

Alerts

Contact The Business

Shortcuts

Share

Category

Listing takedown request