How to maintain chainsaw air filters

[@VT5874]

Came up from Oregon to help with the fires last year on a Forest Service Hotshot Crew. Two assignments, one in Alberta, and the other in Quebec. Spend about 50 days up there. I hope your season was a little better this year. Ours in Oregon is still going.

[@230e4]

The Max Flow is a must for Stihls. Regular servicing is also a must. Now onto emissions. Back in the 90's I worked for a auto repair shop that was an official state emissions repair facility, each bay had a four gas analyzer and one bay had a dyno. Interestingly the cleanest running car I ever tested out of thousands was an early 80's Honda Civic with a little over 80,000 miles on it, a vacuum nightmare with a carburetor. It produced less emissions than the 1 year old fuel injected cars of that time. I was really into building 5.0 mustang's, and V-8 CJ Jeeps at that time and was able to run them on the dyno and emissions test them before and after. The emissions levels improved with the performance enhancements (porting, timing advance, higher lift cam, chip) I did, as well as the mileage on some. I tested a Ford Ranger with the cats removed that passed as well. It was amazing the effect just cleaning the carbon out of the engine made on the test results, think good mix oil, clean air filter, and proper tuning in your saw. I would love to emission test a ported and properly tuned 372xp vs a stock 372 x-torque and 572xp ;) If someone out there does emissions testing on chainsaws Please! Please! Please! Share your experience I think the results would be surprising.

[@nikky3piece452]

Question for you, so are these foam filters better than the stock filters because they let less debris and particles into the carburetor? Do you have to clean the foam filters more often? and after you clean them do you have to reapply oil? Anybody can reply to this question please

[@230e4]

@@nikky3piece452In my experience the foam filters can be used more hours before needing to be washed, and depending on the saw I have experienced considerable more run time before the filter clogs to a point of effecting how the saw runs. I do blow mine off at the end of the day (do not blow into the filter). When the filter gets dirty I wash it. It helps to have two filters. The foam filters need to be oiled. I put them in a zip lock bag with a little bit of Bel-Ray filter oil and work the oil into the filter in the bag, as this is a messy job. To best answer your question it would help to know what saw you are interested in running a foam filter on and how much run time and cutting conditions in a day (dusty, burnt wood, etc.) If you are running say a Stihl 500i cutting six hours a day in my experience the stock filter setup will let fines by as the filter clogs the saw will adjust for it. Now adding an extra washer under the cap helps with the fines, my local dealer actually puts foam weather stripping around the filter to help keep the fines out. I have seen several 500i's with low hours (around 300) with bad crank bearings and lots of fines in the injector. A combination of bad filtration and lack of daily maintenance certainly led to the early failure. I would highly recommend a Maxflow on this saw! Some folks take the filter out half way through the day and tap the debris out as best they can, I prefer not to do this as most of the time fines end up in the carb doing this. On my MS461s I have drilled several holes in the clutch side of the filter cover so chips can fall out as I am felling, I cover these holes with a piece of electrical tape when cutting in snow and rain. Now if you are running a Husky 3 or 5 series or Stihl MS261, MS362, MS400, MS462 the stock filtration works very well in these saws and just blowing the stock filter out at the end of the day and washing them as needed will be fine and you will appreciate not having to deal with a messy oiled foam filter. Run one of these saws all day and a non air injected Stihl like the 500i all day and pull the covers to compare is a night and day difference. I hope this answers your questions.

[@StuInTheSticks]

Cutting dead dry standing pine species is hard on saw's/air filter's even worse is cutting in forest fire burn over area's, that fine burnt char will go through almost any filter's saw's die a early death in that stuff. Any time I get a different saw I switch over to the flocked filter's have done so for year's I cut a lot of dead pine. A good idea is to smear a very light film of grease around the filter base stop's a lot of fine's getting by, I know a bit messy but work's pretty good. And yes most people can't be bothered to barely clean their filter's let alone change them lol! Nice video on the subject, take care.

[@diver1776]

I was looking up proper ail filter maintenance on the 372 filters yesterday, and never came up with a solid answer. How convenient you made a video 😂 Thanks!

[@erikandersson2194]

Aspen 2-stroke fuel and clean filter is the best way to go! 👍See you soon Donny!😊

[@jimssawsnstuff8903]

Good job Donny. I use a bead of grease under the Stihl filters to help them seal, but a guy has to keep them clean. Carry an extra one in you pack etc. Enjoy your week! Coffee ☕️ is a must 😎👍

[@buck.rudy7]

Hi Donny, i have a few stihl 066's that have a piece of foam/sponge material inserted on the inside of the hd2 air filter. Just wondering if that has been another option people could use to help with filtering out fines, the stihl's i have that have that seem to keep material out of the air horn. Thank you for posting these videos to help out people like me that like to work on saws.

[@rooster3019]

Donnie; now that it is summertime I wash my filters in tide. Do you know why??????? Because it is too dang hot out tide.

[@thetwostrokerebuilder]

Ya I'm upstate NY in woods and was Smokey here for few days. Couldn't imagine up even closer

[@penthar6655]

Hey Don, I’m glad I found your video! My Husqvarna 395 has been suffering this very issue. It’s very minor but I have noticed a few fines coating the inside of the air horn a bit. I’ve been cutting green Doug fir, Ponderosa Pine, and on occasion some hardwoods. My full comp chain is razor sharp and correctly profiled. I’ve examined the stock air filter and there’s no tears or holes in the media that I can see anywhere. I also do have the filter tightly clamped to the air horn. I’m assuming the filters micron capacity just isn’t tight enough since that’s the only pathway for contaminates to get by it. The fines are a red color which means it’s bark dust. I’ve tried another new stock filter that I’ve had for a reserve and nothing has really changed. Maybe a shot of air filter oil would be the next step. Or maybe a aftermarket one. 🤔

[@robertdouglas3456]

Great information on your air filters Donny! Thank you!🤩🤩🤩🤩

[@thebradleysoncatbirdhill6849]

Donny....if you ever get a hankering to run for public office, YOU'VE GOT MY VOTE !!!!!!💪💪💪

[@chadbrowning4346]

That’s the saw I want, the 550!

[@loggerjake8506]

We were in a terrible drought on the northeast side of the U.S. up until about a month ago. Now we've gone the other way. It won't stop raining. We got 6 inches in 1 hour the other day. Lots of places got flooded.

[@robertblacksmith4355]

Neighbour threw out his Honda Lawnmower no air filtertook carb apart got it runningthnx for the video Donny

[@bobpena1490]

Nice video I have a stihl ms 250 and the airfilter on that saw is real good at letting fine sawdust around airfiter ..Talked to stihl they were not much help

[@sawmanbigtreeslayer2360]

Super dry here in Minnesota. Huge drought. Lots of smoke from Canada!!

[@jamesmorgan1024]

I had a garage back when a farm boy brought me his truck he had no idea what was wrong I had him unlash the hood I took the air filter out he couldn’t believe how good it ran I put in a new filter

[@jensenwilliam5434]

Smoke mad it to eastern Iowa lasted 4 days.

[@brucehennessy8213]

Get some video at the logger games if you can

[@Ketis1985]

Its unreal that the modern Stihls air filter system is worse than what Jonsered and Husqvarna offered in 80s.

[@daytonwehmeyer3156]

Wishing the best to everyone working on the fires

[@br-dj2ti]

Is it okay Donnyif I use an air hose to blow my air filters out at the end of the day or should I be washing them after every use at the end of the day thank you

[@rickgarman8661]

🎉🎉🎉🎉⁰😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😅😂I am not sure if I can get it to work sweets or not but I

[@sheldonridley1394]

I do that as well with the air hose..seems common sense to always carry extra air filters. I've run 93 octane in my 660 and 066 for years..cleaner run..cleaner on the system. Little extra cost..but I remember the old fram oil filter commercials.."You can pay me now..or pay me later"...💪🍁🌲

[@br-dj2ti]

@@sheldonridley1394 yeah definitely I always run up here in Pennsylvania 93 they say has the same octane and 89 I've had no problems with my saws at all and I've been running them for umpteen years but I do blow the filters out daily

[@Northofsomething82]

Hey Donny, what are your thoughts about running seafoam in your saw for a carbon clean out? Tips, suggestions, stay clear from it? Thanks in advance.

[@tonywelch7786]

Haha it cracks me up when Canadians & Americans complain about high fuel prices of $4 or $5 a gallon when down under in NZ we paying almost $4 a litre which would be about $15 for a US gallon.

[@scottlowther7698]

12:18 Re high gas prices About a third of our gas costs are Federal and Provincial Taxes 😢

[@coreyhorrocks3504]

3rd world chainsaws melted the ice age

[@ronsilva516]

We went trough tat about 2 yr we had a very bad fire called the dixi fie it stated by a dead tree hitting a hydro line and company sent a worker our because a like breaker line had been switched off the company is called pg&e no one did nothing for a few days and it took of in the mountains the terrain was so rugged the could not get a grip on it it just keep jumping and jumping then it just came in like a hurricane and just burn down 90 0/0 of are town in aug 4 2021

[@robertdancho9671]

Some people have no clue.

[@juicebox41]

what 2 stoke oil do you like ??

[@garengtutorial8923]

Bagus 😮 mantaap

[@mikeperry9030]

1.86 a ltr here now, for 91 octane.

[@richardf9137]

Looks to me like that guy with the 461 needs to learn how to sharpen his chain!

[@thetwostrokerebuilder]

Belray or Maxima foam filter oil 🏁🏁 there's nothing better