MCCULLOCH The official McCulloch thread

[Al Smith]

On this subject of sleeving a cylinder with the method I used which is very crude I could do two things .Either find all the pictures or plant a link .Because of the old AS bull-chit linking thing I'm reluctant to do the link unless it's okayed .Because the Monarch 10 EE is down I could not do another one until I installed the new solid state controller in it which I have but have not yet found time to install it .The only other lathe I have is a 20 by 48 Bowes and Emmes circa 1916 which is not capable of doing this type of work . That one could have turned mortar tubes for WW1 it's that old . That old chunk of cast iron tips the scales at around 8,000 pounds . I'll just say it was a challenge setting it .Fact I've got a number of things that are close to 100 years old and they still work .They just don't make them like that any more .

 

[Al Smith]

Now that mention of a cooked 805 the cylinder had bad chrome when I got it .Unknown from the seller which I then got a later model 850 cylinder that had been needled .After working my behind off I cooked it with a prime bottle with straight gas ,duh .I then found what looked like an early model 850 for pennies from E-bay and installed it under the 805 shrouding and never did a thing to the engine .That thing runs like a scalded ape . So I have a useable cylinder but need a B piston which eventually I will find and I can build up another one providing I can find all the rest of the parts which are all in a box some place . I do have an SP 81 which is a good runner I just don't use it . Lots of shelf queens you know .The challenge is making them run, no one person could ever use them all in a timely manner .

 

[Vinnywv]

Very true al. I have a near mint dei0, pm800, and another shelf queen sp81. I also have a pretty darn nice but not untouched pm805. They all mostly sit. The 805 does have a untouched engine provided by mark h. This was before the sleeving came about. The ones i use in the garage are sp81 and pm850. Then there are the 70cc saws. 7 of them. Why?? Whyyyyyy? She asks. The same reason you have 2 feet and 50 pair of shoes. Whatever goes good for the wood that day. Ill never run out of saws.....cause i keep finding and fixing them. Hahaaa

 

[Maintenance Chief]

Very true al. I have a near mint dei0, pm800, and another shelf queen sp81. I also have a pretty darn nice but not untouched pm805. They all mostly sit. The 805 does have a untouched engine provided by mark h. This was before the sleeving came about. The ones i use in the garage are sp81 and pm850. Then there are the 70cc saws. 7 of them. Why?? Whyyyyyy? She asks. The same reason you have 2 feet and 50 pair of shoes. Whatever goes good for the wood that day. Ill never run out of saws.....cause i keep finding and fixing them. Hahaaa

Hey! I want to see some ripp snorting video of the sleeve saw!
It should warm up next week up there Vinny.

 

[Vinnywv]

Boy i hope it warms up. Im pretty sick of this weather. Ill do my best to get that video for you.

 

[Al Smith]

Nothing like Ohio weather .Last week in the teens 9-10 inches of snow on the ground .Warmed up into the mid 40's last few days ,most of it melted .It's dipping down again ,into the teens once again starting today .This could continue into mid March .You just never know .One morning it's arctic Carhart next it might be a hooded sweat shirt . We've got these great inland seas called the great lakes and one is Lake Erie ,90 miles to the north .That is what controls the weather in this neck of the woods .

 

[Vinnywv]

True....im four and a half hours or so from port clinton, where i go fishing once a year witha group of crabby retired guys..lol. im the only one still working from our fishing group. Anyway, lake erie is cold.

So today i cycled the sleeve 850. Started it up and got it warm and made a carb adjustment. Let it idle about 10 minutes and shut it down. It has a 24 inch bar on it now. Rither tomorrow or later im gonna make a cut with it. Likely put ona 20 inch bar though. Easier to handle. Ill see if i can get my daughter to take a video. This week. If so ill post it to youtube. Im not an editor so it wont be a great video. But a video nuntheless.

 

[Al Smith]

I spent most of the winter of 1977 in Port Clinton ,when the blizzard hit working on Davis-Besse nuke power house .It got so cold I had to put a heat lamp on the starter of the 1966 Olds 442 to keep it warm enough for it to engage . The lake side summer cottage was not more than 150 feet from the shore of Lake Erie .Some idiot put an up flow furnace in place of a down flow with it running hard as it could with all the burners plus the oven door open had a hard time getting much above 65 degrees .Hard times, have to do what you have to do . .

 

[edju1958]

The great shortage of Mac parts has begun.I'd ordered 2 sets of 10-10 rings from Bob Johnson about a week or 2 ago & he called me yesterday to tell me he's out of 'em.His solution was to replace them with .020 over rings.I'd have to file .020 off the ends.He has no plans on buying any more parts either.There was a fella out in N.M.who'd custom make rings for just about anything at a reasonable price too.Here we go:www.rmjmachineworx.com
I'll talk with Bob to see if he'd be interested in restocking the 10-10 rings.Mark,maybe you'd be interested as well.He may even have them in stock already.I don't have the size in mm.,so I can't go any further.

 

[Al Smith]

I think that shortage started in around '98 or so when Mac circled the drain and sold off remaining stock .People from all over the US and Canada bought it off in giant lots .However no matter what is sooner or later if there is enough demand somebody will make after market parts .As just as an example you can build a CJ-5 jeep just from components or a Modal A Ford .Parts for the undercarriage of an Oliver Crawler tractor ,once almost none existent are now being made and that list is very long .

 

[edju1958]

When I see it I'll believe it.Bob J.always had a good supply of parts,there was no need for aftermarket anyyhing.One would think that someone would've started making the domed air filter by now.Woody Strohmen in Wi.got an aftermarket on one of 'em,but there were several different ones.LRB pistons are pretty much junk (not the piston,but the wrist pins).Vinny's buddy is now making sleeves for the 82cc Macs,so that's one model saved temporarily till the pistons & rings run out,unless you're willing to take a chance on the LRB pistons.Mac has been out of business for the better part of 25 yrs.& the parts held out for quite a while.There would've been more parts out there,but Mac took what they couldfn't sell to the landfill.There were countless tractor trailer loads of parts that went to the landfill.That just makes me wanna cry.This was all due to the fact that the company couldn't adapt to modern times.The feds told all the big saw co.s here in the U.S.in '93 or '94 that they had to make saws that would use 50:1 fuel.They threw their hands in the air like a bunch of little school girls & said "we can't do it".Yet the European mfgrs.did it.So much for Yankee ingenuity & American know how.
Sorry about the rant.

 

[Al Smith]

Rant or not you must factor in the owners of McCulloch chainsaws are very much in the minority of all owners of chainsaws .Restorers of same would not account for 2 percent of all owners of chain saws .Those that are able would be less than 10 percent of those who still own them .It's as simple as that ,it would be a niche market .I mean WTH it's kind of like Indian motorcycles or 1958 Edsels .

 

[Maintenance Chief]

When I see it I'll believe it.Bob J.always had a good supply of parts,there was no need for aftermarket anyyhing.One would think that someone would've started making the domed air filter by now.Woody Strohmen in Wi.got an aftermarket on one of 'em,but there were several different ones.LRB pistons are pretty much junk (not the piston,but the wrist pins).Vinny's buddy is now making sleeves for the 82cc Macs,so that's one model saved temporarily till the pistons & rings run out,unless you're willing to take a chance on the LRB pistons.Mac has been out of business for the better part of 25 yrs.& the parts held out for quite a while.There would've been more parts out there,but Mac took what they couldfn't sell to the landfill.There were countless tractor trailer loads of parts that went to the landfill.That just makes me wanna cry.This was all due to the fact that the company couldn't adapt to modern times.The feds told all the big saw co.s here in the U.S.in '93 or '94 that they had to make saws that would use 50:1 fuel.They threw their hands in the air like a bunch of little school girls & said "we can't do it".Yet the European mfgrs.did it.So much for Yankee ingenuity & American know how.
Sorry about the rant.

Its like anything else Ed, when I started getting into old cars there was all these private run junk yards in the mountains of Pennsylvania where I could get a mopar 383 for 250.00$ or a 400 sm block Chevy for 300.00.
They are all gone now , my friends who ran them have passed and the land has been cleared and cars crushed.
By the time I was started the Desotos and studebaker's were already gone or picked over, if you wanted one it was not gonna be cheap but such is life.
It'll probably happen with all the old saws too, and guys will focus on the models that are new to us.
People like Al and Mark are doing the world a huge favor by documenting their stories and experience with the old Macs and sharing it with us, and thats something good to focus on.

 

[RI Chevy]

Not liking that post.

 

[Maintenance Chief]

Not liking that post.

Yeah , its a hard pill to swallow, but just think your on of the ones around NOW so have fun.

 

[RI Chevy]

Absolutely!!! You also ...

 

[Al Smith]

Any restoration of anything requires some patience ,You might be dealing with something the parts have not been made in over 50 years and if it were rare even then the supply would be limited .Which is not so say things can be modified to work in place of OEM parts .That however requires a lot of research and you can often find yourself in a dead ended alley so to speak so you have take another route .
When I did the two partner P-100's I didn't know beans from apple butter about the brand or the model .It took me two years before I rounded up the parts .Then it was a week 10 days before I got the job done and BTW it came out good .Sitting at a picnic table under a big umbrella in the hot summer sun in 90 degree weather cutting gaskets and sipping barley pop It was 12 above when I got up this morning no picnic table sitting today .

 

[Al Smith]

Now then piston rings .They can be made and you can "Google " the method . When I resleeved the Mac 125 I turned out I think 6 and partially finished them using either A2 or O2 tool steel .They were never finished because I got a new OEM set from Mike Acres .Not to poke fun but on a 10-10 they made so many of them you should be able to find a donor for less than the price of new OEM rings .You just need to find a friendly dealer with a big "Dead pile ".On that some are friendly and some are just arrogant pricks .

 

[heimannm]

I have an ample supply of +0.030 rings for the 54cc 10 Series and would be happy to donate a few sets to anyone willing to try filing the ends to work in a standard bore...for science.

Mark

 

[Maintenance Chief]

I have an ample supply of +0.030 rings for the 54cc 10 Series and would be happy to donate a few sets to anyone willing to try filing the ends to work in a standard bore...for science.

Mark

Mark I have a 30 over p/c I could use a set for?
PM me a price please , when you get time.