Back story, my son Andrew bought this saw for a great price because it had a broken brake flag ear on the case. Brake works no problem but I tried unsuccessfully to JB the piece back on. So I went on the hunt for a replacement used case. It's basically a red Husky 350. t4driller had a spare he sold to us and we decided to try the Rit dye and go all black. I've seen this done on the other forums so I had an idea as to what steps to take. Cleaned everything up and got out the turkey frying pot. Put it on top of the woodstove and filled with water to cover the parts. Stirred in 2 bottles of dye, then parts and let it stew for about 3-4 hours. Came out great! Here's some pics so far. Here's the broken case. And the before/after
And starting reassembly. Couldn't wait to see how it was going to look, so a quick mock up was in order.
At this point, progress will slow. I removed the cylinder and measured squish, which came in @ .044. It has a dished piston in it, so we plan to find a flat top and get squish as close to .020 as possible. The riser/cyl base will get sanded on the bench with some paper and a flat surface.
That is awesome! I did some t shirts back in the day, but I have never seen chainsaws dyed! That is very cool!
Rit dye bought at the local walmart. Meteor piston for a 353 is on its way from DefinitiveDave. New decals are ordered from woodcuttersgarage. I think we're going to see what the silver clutch cover from my 346 looks like on it. Probably just spray the original one black eventually.
I cleaned up the residual, of course the dye doesn't sink into metal. I cleaned it then boiled another batch of just water, and cleaned it again. We haven't done a turkey in it for about 4-5 years anyway. My wife likes to do them in oven bags. Darn peanut oil prices are nuts, LOL!
Good to know it didn't ruin the pot. We don't cook at lot of turkeys in there lately either (ever since we got the oil less turkey fryer recommend on this site ) but those pots do come in handy for other uses.
Whelp, this build ended up going a little further than anticipated. With a little help from a friend, I decided to grind away. First time doing so except for some minor exhaust port widening. First thing up was the riser base, after that, I matched the cylinder bottom to it. Here's a few pics. Before: After: And the fit to the base: Looks like it should flow a bit easier.
Next up were the transfers under the covers. Nothin' major going on here, just trying to make it breath a little better. I did thin the port dividers. Also very slight widening of the ports, making them a little wider and angling towards the intake. I did not take a pic of that yet.
Had to fire it up. We plan to rough up the original clutch cover and spray it black. Till then, I mounted up my 346 cover for the Oakland Raiders look. Mike is also going to hook us up with an all black bar. Woot!
