Well it has become very obvious to me that I somehow sabotaged my own saw. As soon as I started tearing it down, I removed the air filter and noticed that the screws were loose. I looked in the elbow and carb inlet and they were caked in sawdust. That’s not good…
Then when I got around to pulling the cylinder off, it became obvious that this was not a “fines getting through” situation. There was larger sawdust caked all up in the crankcase. I never imagined that a saw could get like this, let alone my own saw. Take a look at the pictures…
Now I know to ALWAYS make sure that the air filter is tightened down before I go cutting.