History given as given by the customer: "I was using it and left it idling while move some branches. While I moving these the saw quit. When I tried to start it back up to use it was locked up."
Normally I usually think of straight gassing in these cases but it was not caused by this. It actually was a assembly problem from factory that took quite a few years to show up. When the saw was assembly in 2005 they somehow dislodge one of the cover plates and was only held in the crankcase by the crankshaft bearing oil seal.
It finally came loose and lodge near the the impulse hole jamming and damaging the piston. The was lucky as it did only slight damage at the impulse area. So I gave the customer an estimate of the damage and my opinion what happen. Since he at that time didn't want to let me fix the saw I charged a small estimating fee.
He was upset that it was a factory problem and tried to get the Husqvarna dealer to do the repairs. Of course they didn't due to that it had been out of warranty for several years. He also compared my estimate to the dealer. Well he decided to let me do the repairs after all.
Well everything went okay while reassembling the engine until I tried to crank it this morning. It hit one time and I could not get to hit anymore. Well dang it what I did I missed I thought.
So I set in to do the basic tests. Check that it was firing, okay there. Check the compression with decompressor engaged; 120 psi on three pulls. Well maybe I had a sheared flywheel key so I pulled the flywheel; okay there too. Then I noticed that plug was wet with fuel so check for plugged spark arrestor; clean. Since it was reported have been running at the time failure I had not considered a carburetor problem in the estimate but I finally found it was a metering diaphragm just harden enough to not to work at the 35F shop temperature.
Just shows that you should always add in the cost of carburetor rebuild when doing estimates when equipment is brought in running. I several riders last year gave carburetor problems after they were in the shop a couple weeks. You can always delete it if not need and customers will think you done them a favor.
BTW this repair only cost the customer a little under $200 including the previous estimate fee as I able use some aftermarket parts and I didn't charge the extra time it took to troubleshoot the above. Instead having to replace the bearings and seals I was able to get the seals and I use a Meteor piston set. Of course I did go OEM on the Zama GND kit.
Everytime I work on these 2 cycles it seems that I learn something new to pass on later.
I even got a new tool made out of this repair job by one of my neighbors that is machinist. I gave him my drawings of what I was needing and he made me one out stainless steel. He said used my project to train an new employee so we both benefited.