saw troubles

[paddler]

hey folks, my stihl 391 died on me yesterday. Not sure what happened but im sure its not good! the piston wont travel all the way up. it comes to a very solid stop. if you look through the top of the spark plug hole you can see the piston come up and stop, you can then rotate the piston the other way, itll go down, come back up and clunk against whatever is stopping it. Not sure? did i fry something in the piston? or is it the crankshaft or pin?

thanks.

[CTYank]

Could be something up top, or down below. Assuming you have taken off the recoil cover to turn the engine either way, next thing I'd do is to pull the muffler and inspect the piston & cylinder. (Could even be a broken ring, which would be obvious there.) You could see just where the piston stops. Then some pix would help a lot.

And, what do you mean by "died"?

[ladylake]

 
Take the recoil off and check the flywheel for any obstructions, if none take the motor apart.  On these Stihl farm and ranch saws quality is headed downhill. Out on sawing jobs I see quite a few almost new ones with major problems.  Steve