hey guys welcome back to my small engine repair Channel today I want to talk about a question that
I often get on YouTube in the shop here as well that question is can I safely use a nylon rope
to lock up the engine on my chainsaw to remove the clutch or the flywheel nut well the answer to that
guys is yes you can safely use a nylon rope to do that but make sure to watch the video here because
I'm going to show you what to avoid so that you don't get that rope caught up in the cylinder and
then have to take your entire chainsaw apart now in some of my previous videos I have used nylon
ropes to lock up chainsaws to remove the clutches and I've always explained how to do this with the
chainsaw intact like that what I've done here is cut out a cylinder in half just so I can show
you exactly how you want to do it just so that you have in your mind when you put the rope in
what is actually going on inside so most of the comments that I get from people is that they tried
to lock up the engine on their chainsaw but what happened is the Rope got stuck in the cylinder and
they could not get that rope out so that's a major problem if that happens and this is why I'm making
the video today and why I did this cut out here is so that you don't make that mistake now depending
on the size of Chainsaw you have that you want to remove the clutch you will need different sizes of
rope so this is the most common one that I use here I believe this is a quarter inch or 5 16.
it's more like 5 16. now if you want to take apart a bigger chainsaw you might want to get
a bigger rope like this now the most important thing you should do when you get in your rope
is make sure that you mold at the end of the Rope here so that it's not all frayed like this this is
how you want the Rope to be so the way I do that is I use a propane torch I just kind of heat up
the ends here make sure you're wearing gloves and then you just kind of mold it together like this
foreign
the reason you want to do that is so that little pieces of the Rope don't end up staying inside
your engine so let's go to the cutout here now this is a two-cycle engine on a chainsaw and
you can see the exhaust Port over here this is the intake port and on some saws you will have
a port on the side of the cylinder right here and those are the areas here the exhaust port and the
port on the side of the cylinder that you do not want the Rope to get caught in there so what often
happens is people put a rope in without knowing where the Piston is and the Rope might actually
get right in the exhaust Port so when you go to take off your clutch what's happening is you're
actually squeezing the Rope between the piston and the cylinder and there's a high probability
that you can cause damage to your parts in your cylinder or get the Rope snapped in there
and stuck inside so this is how you do not want it to be and if it gets caught on the inside Port
over here it can kind of share the rope and have pieces of rope go right inside the crankcase now
it's highly unlikely that the Rope would get stuck in the intake Port because the Piston doesn't
really go down below that so here's when your engine's working this is what's Happening Here
Pistons going up and down like this at a high speed okay now I'm going to show you how to
properly do this without getting the Rope stuck in the ports so what you can do is take the spark
plug off your chainsaw or weed whack or whatever you're working on you could actually use a small
screwdriver like this just to feel the piston and as you move the flywheel or the clutch the Piston
will go up and down and what I do is once I know the Pistons at the top like this I just go back
but just a bit so that the Piston is not below the exhaust port or the port on the
side of the cylinder so what I would do is just insert a lot of rope as much as I can
and if this is done properly guys it's a hundred percent safe
you're not going to break your chainsaw
so now clutches as you know have reverse threads so in this case I lowered the Piston by turning
left because I knew when I tighten it's going to want to go up so here's how the Rope will
work it's going to lock the piston and it's also flexible so it's not a hard object or metal object
that could actually crack your piston there's a bit of give to it and then you can grab your
ratchet and a socket put it on the clutch nut and then just force it and the clutch will come off
without damaging anything so it's one thing to show to you on the cutout here how to do it but
I'm actually going to do it on an actual chainsaw that is not cut up like that one just to show you
a real life example so I've got an an MS 180c here I will take the cover off the spark plug is off
and again guys if you go to do this on your chainsaw and you're not sure where the Piston
is you can always take the muffler off and I'll do that right now I've already got the
nuts loose here so if you don't feel confident that you've got the Piston above the exhaust
Port take the muffler off because you can see the Piston inside there it is it's all scored
up but I'm going to use it to show you how to do this take your clutch cover off so I'm
going to take the clutch off some days you might have to take the flywheel off on the other side
now these stealth chainsaws you just pop this e-clip
make sure your brake is off for the clutch drum to come off so let's say you don't have the muffler
off and you're not sure where the Piston is do like I showed you earlier grab a small screwdriver
stick it in through the spark plug hole just keep it straight like this don't put the screwdriver
like this because you might get it in the exhaust Port keep it like that turn the clutch find out
where the Piston is right at the top it is now so I'm going to back up because I'll be
turning that way to unscrew the clutch so now I've got a bit of space inside the cylinder
this is about where I'm at now on the ms-180c that I'm removing the clutch
so there will be lots of room like this to insert my rope and sometimes when you put
the rope in you want to twist it as you're pushing it in it just makes it easier to get it in there
so I think I've got quite a bit of rope in there and if you don't have enough rope in there let's
say like this what's going to happen is when you go to remove it it might just go back down
because there wasn't enough rope to actually block the piston
and now what I'm going to do is put my 19 millimeter socket on the clutch nut
I'm going to turn it make sure that the Piston is actually locking really well
now we're getting really tight here now hold this really well you might want to put something
here to grab your hand or put a glove because it might just let go all of a sudden and you might
bang your hand or do it over the edge of the table maybe maybe that's what I'll do now and
now that I've got a good lock I can really force it and let's see if she comes loose there we go
so now the clutch has come loose I can remove the clutch and now I can pull the Rope right
out of the cylinder and the Rope did not get caught inside the cylinder and I did not cause
any damage to the chainsaw and remember that you can use this same procedure to remove the
flywheel nut as well and now what I'm going to do is re-tighten the clutch up and I will show
you how I will do this again with the Rope inside the cylinder now before reinstalling the clutch or
putting the rope in the cylinder what you want to do is grab the crankshaft on your chainsaw
and turn it to the left counterclockwise and you want to make sure that it turns freely
and the reason I'm saying to do that is because some chainsaws when you turn the crankshaft
counterclockwise what can happen is the flywheel will get caught in the starter pause and it puts
all the pressure on the starter so you don't want all the pressure on the starter you want it on the
nylon rope inside the cylinder just like on the cycle chainsaw here guys if I turn the clutch
counterclockwise it puts pressure on the recoil so you can see the recoil here will move watch this
the cord's a bit limp but as I turn the clutch The Recoil will go back in
see that so this chainsaw here if I were to tighten up the clutch all the pressure would
be on the recoil and you can end up breaking your recoil if you do it that way so it's very
critical if you have a saw like this to lock up the piston in the cylinder to put the pressure
on there instead of The Recoil but even though this still chainsaw does not have this problem
I will show you again how to do it in case you have a chainsaw like the echo one there
so what I do on chainsaws like that is I just pull the cord out and then I tie it around the handles
just to give me some some play here some distance in the starter rope so basically the reason I have
the Rope out is so that when I'm tightening up the clutch the Rope will slowly go back down as
I'm tightening it instead of putting pressure on the parts of the recoil so always remember that
tied the Rope up a bit then as you're tightening let the Rope go down accordingly don't let it
all go back in because then it's going to put the pressure on the recoil let it gradually turn and
go back in slowly as you're tightening up the clutch so again here by looking either through
the exhaust port or using the screwdriver like this you can see where your Piston's at
so here I will back up just a little bit maybe a quarter of a turn it's going to give me enough
room inside there to put the Rope and again you want to put in as much rope as you can
it just makes for a better lock
and if you find you can't get enough rope in you might need to use a smaller rope
so you can just go to the home to the Home Depot or hardware store and buy different
lengths or sizes of this cord or rope and just keep them handy for instances like this
now I've got the Piston locked up with the Rope I will put my clutch back on start it by hand
and I'll grab my ratchet and just lightly tighten up the clutch guys you don't need
to go crazy here because it will tighten up itself when you put the barn chain and cut wood with it
all right that's all you need now you can pull the Rope right out
it did not get stuck in the cylinder and everything is installed correctly
now one very important tip I want to tell you guys here is if you just did this you reinstalled the
clutch don't start up the chainsaw without the barn chain because the clutch may come flying out
and fly across your shop always test it out with the barn chain and everything installed correctly
so that's pretty well all you have to do to correctly remove your clutch or flywheel and
reinstall it using the nylon rope again make sure that the Piston is in the correct position and
that it's covering all the ports so that the Rope cannot get caught between the piston and the ports
now you guys might say this is all great done I saw how you did it but what if I get the Rope
stuck between the piston and the exhaust port or the side ports and the Rope is broken inside the
cylinder what should I do well the first thing I would do is take off the muffler to see if I could
extract the Rope through the exhaust Port if you can get it out through the exhaust port with the
muffler off that's awesome guys then make sure that you don't have any any frayed cord left in
there but if you've really got it in there badly you might have to actually remove the cylinder and
get all the remnants of the cord that are left inside don't try to pull it over to burn it off
or do whatever don't force anything just take it apart unfortunately and retrieve everything so
you don't cause more damage so what I'm going to do here before I end off the video is I just want
to show you again how I did it what you want to do is line up your piston above the exhaust port
or any ports inside if there is a side port here it will usually line up with the exhaust Port make
sure you're above that bring your piston right up and again you can use a screwdriver to determine
where your Piston's at the top then just come down like maybe a quarter of a turn or less just
enough so that you can get this rope in there once you have enough rope in there and again guys you
might want to try and get like this amount of rope in there if you can the more the merrier because
then you're certain that it will lock if you don't have enough rope in there like I mentioned earlier
you're going to go to remove the clutch and it's just basically going to do another Revolution kind
of like this see there's not enough rope so it's not even locking and if you feel that you did not
put enough rope and you can feel it trying to do an actual turn just back off and start over
you don't want to force it if you feel that it's not locking properly
so just another thing here guys before I end off the video some people may ask am I better off to
use a piston stop instead of the nylon rope well my answer to that is yes if you have the proper
piston stop for your piece of equipment always use that first before the Rope so personally if
I don't have to use a rope that's what I prefer if I have the proper piston stop I will use it
I'll just show you quickly here with the cutout how to use a piston stop so here's a few piston
stops that I have here some are plastic Summer metal I really don't like using the metal ones
guys because I've seen people cause damage to their piston with these I prefer using the plastic
ones here but if you have the proper one for your saw even though it's metal this is how these work
you screw it into your spark plug hole and then when you go to remove the clutch it locks itself
against the piston stop here and you can get these in different lengths now if you have a plastic one
like this this is how they work you insert it through the spark plug hole but again you'd want
to make sure that the Piston's down before you put it in it'll go right through the hole this holds
a bit damaged that's why it's hard for me to get it through here and then it would sit like this
and then when you go to unscrew the clutch it'll just lock itself inside the cylinder
like that which is great and let's try it in DMS 180 here just put it in like that
and now it's locking it up so these are cheap to buy just go to your dealer and pick up a few
just say for which saw you want them for because they will come in different sizes
what I'll do is I'll put some part numbers under the video for this piston stop and some other
ones that I have but again guys I wanted you to see exactly what's going on when you put a rope
inside the cylinder of your two cycle equipment if you were doing this on a four cycle engine what
you would want to do is make sure both valves are closed when you insert the Rope same principle but
different procedure than a two-cycle engine like this and I almost forgot guys a lot of people will
use impacts to remove and tighten up clutches and flywheels and stuff like that just be careful if
you do it that way it's not recommended because if you try to remove a clutch with an impact you
could break the key that is built in to your flywheel on the other side of your engine just
keep that in mind you might be able to do it and get away with it but at some point you
might have to pay the price and replace a flywheel on the other side or cause damage to your clutch
so I hope this video has answered a lot of questions here guys and if anybody asks me
about using a nylon rope I will actually send him the link to this video here if this video
has helped you please like it and share it with your friends guys and if you have
any questions please comment below the video thanks again for watching guys have a great day