I started out in this climbing adventure with a beat-up, patched-together 1972 Stihl 015. I ran the pizz out of that saw, even dropped it out of trees and rebuilt it a few times. The crank seals are acting up now, but it'll still fire up and cut..... In my opinion, the 015's downfall is the cheesy and primitive tank vents. Basically a cotter key in a hole through the cap. Can't hold the saw upside down or sideways for long, it'll leak everywhere. Also, up until recently, you couldn't get new or repop crank seals. Not sure if they've started remanufacting them yet or not. Those saws have some serious balls when running properly.
I remember going to Dads in the early 70's and he was all excited to show me his new saw. Took it for a run and what a wood eating thing it was. Of coarse his previous saw, what I used in my teen years, was an big old McCulloch from the early 60's with a manual oiler. By the time you toted it to the woodlot, it was time for a break. I guess anything would be greater than that old saw. The saw started having problems. Several attempts at 2 different Stihl shops and they couldn't fix it. I finally found an independent shop that was able to fix it. A couple of years later it started displaying the same symptoms. Ran good until it got hot and then stall never to start until it assumed ambient temperature. A good tailgate saw. Run the crap out of it. When it stalled, drop the tailgate, load the rounds, enjoy a beverage and head towards home. I gave it back to dad.
