Somewhat embarrassed to admit that the oil that I drained from the tank that *looked* clean on first inspection, wasn?t. After a night settling in a glass bowl it was clear that there was a lot of fine dust in the oil. I thought I?d been really careful when topping up the oil but obviously not.
I?ve now flushed and rinsed the whole system with white spirit and got more out of the filter so it was probably just a blocked filter all along.
Just for fun I put the white spirit through a coffee filter?
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So, at the end of the day, the new pump might prove to be superfluous but I couldn?t have accessed all the lines without all the disassembly.
Another point is that the "green" vegetable oil recommended for chainsaws will of course degrade more rapidly than mineral oil by oxidation and/or polymerisation. That will typically lead to deposits. If it is well formulated, it should not "break" your chainsaw but there are competing design choices. Things like engine oils use detergents as dispersants but these may not be green enough. Professional users have plenty of oil through-flow and won't have bottles of oil hanging around in sheds for months or years like most of us do.
Well despite my misgivings, the pump arrived today (only ordered at 5 pm yesterday!) and fits just fine. Everything reassembled and for the first time in ages, my chainsaw passes the ?splatter test? so I?m very happy. So happy I treated it to a new chain too. ;-)
Next time I?ll just try flushing all the lines first (now that I know how to get at them and have the tools to remove the clutch).
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