Hello All I recently picked up a Stihl 026 on marketplace. I have not been able to start this project yet.I have a needed fuel line and impulse line on order from stihl. The parts that came the saw had chinausm fuel line and impulse line. The cylinder looks good, however I would like to replace it with a new one that is known to be good. Looking to the saw builders out there as to their recommenced supplier for 026 stihl cylinder & piston. I have seen them listed for a lot and very cheap.
My money only goes to oem cylinders. If yours is good, I’d clean it up and use it. Maybe post some pics of inside so we can see the in/exhaust ports.
I want to believe in the aftermarket P&C's but if the saw is a keeper I would seek out OEM. The builders/modders should know the best non-original replacements.
I know the first saw (MS362) I totally, the OEM cylinder looked totally trashed. The exhaust skirt of the piston had even broken off and the crank was locked up. I posted a pic of the cylinder and the guys in the know told me to clean it up. Almost all of the nastiness was aluminum transfer from the piston overheating and smearing itself on the cylinder walls. I made a mandrel for a drill out of a big spike and used a strip of sandpaper wrapped around it as a flapper to clean that all out. There was very little actual damage to the plating of the cylinder and almost all of that was cosmetic. No real scratches that you could catch a fingernail on. I put new bearings / seals and of course a new piston and ring in and he's still cutting 8 cords a year with it for the last several years.
100%. Id use aftermarket only as a last resort. In fact I have one saw, a Dolmar built Makita, that needed a coil. OEM no longer available because they had problematic coils and the upgraded coils dried up fixing all the problem coils. I ended up finding one company making aftermarket coils for it and so far it's been fine.
