On Fri, 04 May 2007 08:42:56 -0400, trainfan1 wrote:

My first question - where on earth(pardon the pun) did you find enough
metal on a 4 year old Poulan(Craftsman) chain saw to get a verified engine
ground for your spark plug?

Ok, long story short. I checked where I had the plug grounded and it was
metal. I checked it with an ohm meter. It was the cylinder head. My wife
says the saw is closer to 8 years old. Sorry. It only has maybe 40-50
hours on it.

I do have it running now. After your reply I remembered that years ago I
would use starting fluid to bypass a fuel system so I did that with this
saw and it ran a short burst. If I had remembered that earlier I would
have saved myself $40 for a new coil. Oh well........

About the no spark. On an old lawnmower you just had to spin, slower
than normal pull, the engine to check for a spark. It seems on a chainsaw
without points you really have to spin the engine. I yanked it and did
finally see a spark. And yes I feel like a dummy.;-)

I took the carb off, disassembled and cleaned it with some spray and it
works great. Fired right up. It now idles great, which it only did for the
first month when it was new. I was going to get around to looking at that.

Thank you very much for your help.

Steve