Junk yard 028

[woodworkingboy]

Picked up this 028 AV super from my local refuse disposal for free. It took some work to get the dude running decent again, but both the piston and cylinder were in great shape, surprisingly.

The only money I spent on it was for a carb rebuild kit. The previous owner must have left it outside, or under a leaky roof for many moons, as some of the aluminum on the casing was rotted away, and the carb with throttle arrangement was all frozen up.

When re-assembling, I tossed the base gasket to boost compression, used a sealant instead. It's a bad-azz little saw now, as a rule more in my hands than any other when doing treework. Great and very durable saws these are, good horsepower for bucking and limb removal, cutting at the stump if not too large a diameter tree. I'll get around to porting it one of these days. The kicker is that it has a handle heater.

Before and after photos.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Good job restoring, Jay!

 

[woodworkingboy]

Thanks, I wasn't sure at first if I wanted to get into it.

 

[Al Smith]

Looks real good especially considering how it started out . Coincidently I have one sitting in the shed that needs some attention .I don't have a clue what it's ailment is .

 

[vharrison]

Jay, great job!

 

[JonnyHart]

Good find! Looks nice.
Kinda heavy saw when compared to the 026, but damn tough. Not so much plastic.

 

[woodworkingboy]

Right about that Jonny, a bit on the heavy side, but durable.....which is probably good, since I've been known to not set it down so nicely come four o'clock or so. Needs a muffler outer cover, hint hint..

 

[Al Smith]

Needs a muffler outer cover, hint hint..

No got,sorry . If worse comes to worse thump one out yourself . A chunk of 22 gauge black sheetmetal and an hour or so on an anvil ought to do the trick .

 

[stehansen]

Very impressive Jay.

 

[GASoline71]

Nice work mang... When I was still climbing I didn't have a tophandle... so my climbing saw was an 028.

Those are one of Stihls all time best saws... 020T, 026, 028, 044, 046, 056, 066, 076, 090 One great lineup of saws...

Gary

 

[gf beranek]

Looks a little out of place with all those wood working tools in the background. Heck of a fine job polishing'er up.

 

[Ax-Man]

Again, a good job done. Looks super.

Porting ?? I wouldn't. I don't know if there is a difference in 028 engines but I was going to do the same thing a few years back. Pulled the muffler and took one one look at the exhaust port and knew that I would ruin the saw. The 028 super I have has a very distinct looking exhaust port with a very downward sloping angle on the bottom of the port. I am not an expert in how port angles and port configurations relate to engine performance but I think in this particular case Sthil has gotten the most out of this engine. Any changes might result in lose of torque which these saws are noted for. The port design didn't carry over to 026 which replaced the 028.

I did a search on others who did muffler mods for some odd reason and others who ported their saws. Some reported gains but others reported loss of power or no change after the mods. The ones who reported the power loss seem to know their saws better than the ones who said they got improved performance. The main theme I seemed to have gotten from my searches on all the sites was it was best to leave the 028 stock. Which is what I did. I put the muffler back on and found another saw project.

 

[sawinredneck]

Very nice work Jay! You have a lo more paitence that I do!
I'm not very partial to that saw, I think there are better saws in that class. But I have a buddy that loves his!

 

[woodworkingboy]

Thanks for the posts and compliments. I was looking for a saw in that horsepower range, and always liked the design of the 038 and the 028 with the rounded covers, instead of the more current squarish types. I'm sure that the newer models beat it in terms of the weight/performance ratios, but a lot of guys are still using the 028 for firewood saws, etc., it seems to always get a good rap.

Yeah, it does take some patience to bring something dead like that back to life, but in my case it makes a good change from furniture or tree work. I'm kind of funny about things like that, I'll work on it for awhile, then put it aside with the intention to get back to the real job, but fifteen minutes later I'll be back working on the saw again...go figure?

Larry, that's a real interesting comment about porting, that the engine can lose power by doing it. It could well be that with the higher compression and muffler mod, the saw has achieved maximum gains. One thing I noticed about that cylinder, is that you can't widen the exhaust very much from stock, not much metal there. As I mentioned, I did drop the jug the thickness of the gasket, so I was thinking to pretty much just raise the ports back up to stock timing, not get carried away too much over stock. I do have an 036 that I modified that way, and the thing turned into a little monster. Your post sure does offers food for thought though.

Jerry picked up on the Japanese plane on my bench I guess. Good tools....leave a very good surface on the wood. Fine woodworking is pretty cool, but when I look at the amount of damage I have done after a day's chainsaw work, there is no comparison

Gary, haven't read where too many guys are complimenting the 076, but I have to agree with you. I traded a guy a chair for one of those, that's was my first saw.

Jay

 

[Frans]

Ah the good 'ol 076. Spent many a hard hot day working those. Ears ringing and fingers tingling

 

[woodworkingboy]

One of the best starting saws in the business...even with old gas in it.

 

[Al Smith]

An 076 is one torquey SOB ,talk about power ,wow .

By eliminating the gasket on that 028 what you did in addition to raising the comp was to increase the burn time by effectively lowering the ex port . In some cases this will increase the torque but slow the r's down just a tad bit .

If you like you can experiment using different thicknesses of gasketing instead of the stock Stihl base gasket which is around 20 thou . By the way the cover of National Geographic is around 12 thou and makes a pretty good gasket .

 

[GASoline71]

Ah the good 'ol 076. Spent many a hard hot day working those. Ears ringing and fingers tingling

I ran an 076AV (AV = Always Vibrating ) when I was a teenager in the woods on the landing buckin' big butt ends of logs with a 42" bar. That saw knocked me on my ass once... I had a lot of respect for that beast.

My arms still tingle from runnin' that thing...

Gary