K-TRON

I am honestly shocked that this saw was fit with such an aggressive blade from the factory. I had tried a carbide tipped blade much like that and the belt continued to slip no matter how I adjusted the drive belt, and how slow I fed it wood. I suspect that the reason for this was due to the inherently wider cut made by the style of blade that I used. The teeth are very closely set on the blade I currently run, and it works well. Chris

David, Yes the numbers are stamped on the cooling baffle. There is a sticker on the top of the engine which says that it was manufactured by Advanced Engine Products. Thank you for helping me decode the serial number. I like to hold as much correct information as possible about the engines in my collection. September of 1976 sounds about right to me. The literature and warranty card I have is printed 1970 and 1973, so it only makes sense that the engine was later. I had no idea that they were building thousands of these engines per month. You certainly do not see them very often anymore. The horsepower chart is also wonderful. I have not seen that before. I have the correct air filter for this engine, it is just not installed at the moment. Chris

I have been busy inventorying all of my engines, and came across my old Drillgine. It has a model 13B 403 engine # 6092030. It is rated 1hp according to the sticker on the factory toolbox. In my search for information, I need to verify some specifications on this engine. Am I correct that the model 13B has a 1-1/4" bore, and 1.096" stroke, with 1.34 cubic inch, 21.9cc displacement, rated 1hp @ 6300rpm. I have found conflicting rpm numbers for the 1hp rating, 6300 or 7000. I have the year 1967 written down for it, is that correct? It starts and runs real good even after its four or so year slumber. Chris

Very nice Comet C-SAW. I have one identical to yours. If you click my user name you should be able to find the thread I have on it on here. Mine is serial number 005495, which I believe was built in 1960. What is the serial number of the engine on yours? I have an 8-1/4" fine tooth 5/8" arbor blade on my C-SAW. It is about all that it can handle. I have tried more aggressive blades and the drive belt will slip. I really enjoy using this saw. I start mine every two to three weeks so that it doesnt loose its prime. If you need any dimensions or pictures just ask, mine is easily accessible. Chris

When my O&Rs fail to start easily I hookup my rubber tipped blowgun to the breather in the fuel tank. With the air regulated down to 10psi, I use the blowgun to push fuel right into the engine. Pull the plug, check that it is not hydrolocked from fuel, and start it. I run clear tygon fuel line so I can watch the air push fuel bubbles out of the line. The diaphragm in my Comet saw was totally dead so it required constant maintenance to keep it going. With the new diaphragms from John it should fix that. If your O&R has a primer, you wont have to do this, unless it too has a bad diaphragm. If that is the case, hold the primer down and use the method above. Cross your fingers and it may start, it is an O&R afterall..... Chris

It was great meeting you John. There is a lot of good old iron in your neck of the woods. I pulled this 1951 Howard Gem out of the ground less than a mile from where you live. You cannot pass up a JAP engine when the price is free.... I took the engine all apart, cleaned it up and put it all back together. I had it running pretty good for a while. Last weekend a raccoon eat the plug wire and chewed the Wico model A cap into pieces so now it needs some hard to find parts. Anyhow, I look forward to seeing you again. Maybe next time there will be time to view your collection. Chris

Thank you for posting that information David! I was bidding on the O&R master service manual that ended on ebay Friday night. I was hoping to get the service manual cheap, but there was more interest than expected. I am glad you are able and willing to post alot of good O&R information, as that information is priceless when work needs to be done. I bent the brass starter dog spring as best that I could, but sadly it will need to be replaced sooner than later. I will probably make a new one out of a brass feeler gauge of the appropriate thickness shim stock. The starter dogs you posted have a larger counterweight on them than mine do, unless mine were modified at some point in time. Chris

Clint, as best I can tell is that the recoil handle was never painted. Davids response parallels that. It does look nice now that the saw is cleaned up and in functional shape. The saw looked like hell when I bought it in Anchorage Alaska. I had found it on craigslist for $100 4500 miles away. It was used, abused and put away wet. It was a great buy even with shipping. It cost me next to nothing to fix it if you dismiss the amount of time it took to pull it all apart and go through everything. I really like gasoline powered hand tools. I wish Homelite had the same array of their cordless power tools just to display them nicely side by side. I had joined the O&R group in 2013 when I stumbled across a Drillgine with the later 1hp engine. It was a fine tool complete with the yellow carry box. Later I picked up an amp-champ, several tiny tigers, a polaris power pole, a military O&R, several parts engines, and of course this Comet C-SAW. This early O&R is the best runner of the bunch. Now that I know what to look for, I will keep an eye out for more of the early engines. I was watching that strikemaster ice auger on ebay, turns out my same friend in Alaska has one and bought it new for ice fishing. Chris

I was going to order some Stens 146-027 #4 recoil rope, but decided that the rope I have should be good enough for several more years of use. I left it at the 37-1/4" length. I had a hell of a time getting the recoil pulley back onto the arbor. I cleaned up the burrs with a needle file, and of course the recoil spring jumped out. I was able to get it all back together and tested again before installing the recoil back on the engine. The pulley was grabbing and binding unevenly until I lubricated the shaft, then all was good. I took this opportunity to replace the five 6-32 machine screws which secure the recoil to the engine with some new stainless steel wire lockable 6-32 machine screws. Previously everytime I ran the engine the recoil screws would loosen up, so this should stop that from happening. I have to say this was by far the most painstaking recoil repair I have ever had to perform. I own over 300 air cooled engines, albeit most do not have recoils, but I can rebuild Briggs, Tecumseh, F-M, Kohler or Schnacke recoils in just a few minutes. This O&R was about seven hours of work start to finish. At least when it was all done, the engine started up and ran good. I am pretty happy with it. I will have to order or make a new diaphragm for the carburetor at some point. Spraying it with oil to make it plyable is only a temporary fix. As per the output shaft on the C-SAW, it uses a 1-1/16" o.d. steel pulley similar to the picture you posted in post #7. Thanks again for all of your help. Next time around, things should go much quicker. Chris

David, Thank you very much for the links and the pictures. I was able to repair the recoil spring with some help from my acetylene torch. After heating and bending I quenched the end of the spring steel in oil. I have done this before on several other recoil springs that I have repaired over the years with good success. I was worried that my spring was from a different application as when I test wound it I was counting 9 turns, not 11. I simply did not have the spring coiled tight enough. It took several tries to get the recoil spring in place, but I managed thanks to your pictures. Now that it is assembled, my recoil spring is only about a sixth of a turn shorter than yours. I have never had to repair the recoils on any of my other O&Rs. I had simply just lubricated them and they worked. I did not realize how early of an engine that this is until I found nothing like it in the O&R pdfs I found online. I did not think they made hundreds of thousands of them. You certainly do not see them very often at engine shows. Does anyone have a spec on how long the recoil rope should be? I am measuring 37-1/4" end to end on the rope I have. Also can anyone verify if I installed the spring retainer properly. It seems a little loose, as in it can move around a little bit. Thanks Chris

This is my first post here, I was a member back on the O&R Forum in 2013 before it moved here. I recently picked up a nice original Comet C-SAW powered by an Ohlsson & Rice ~3/4hp engine. The serial number is 005495. It is a pretty early O&R, at least from the ones I have seen. It has the red teardrop recoil housing and the early carburetor that does not have a primer. I have around a dozen O&R's in my collection of antique engines and machinery. This saw has been sitting for probably 30 years before I bought it. I pulled it apart to lubricate the piston rings and make sure everything was right before running it. The engine was in really nice shape and might have only had five hours of total runtime on it. After I put it all back together it ran great. I really enjoyed using it. Yesterday the recoil quit working. My saw usually starts on the third pull, and on the second pull the recoil jammed up and would not retract. I carefully disassembled the recoil, finding the spring to be bent in a figure 8 on the inside loop. I am looking through an O&R Type 176 manual I found online and the PDF's show a "Starter Reel Retaining Ring". My engine does not have one of these. I do not know what type number my engine is. The only number I saw when disassembling and reassembling it was the serial number that I posted above. Can someone please post some good pictures of what the recoil spring is supposed to look like, and perhaps a picture of what it looks like installed. I am unsure whether or not the end of my recoil spring is broken off or not. I spent an hour trying to put the recoil back together without success. Something is clearly off. Also one of the starter dogs on my engine has been welded back together. The little brass spring does not do much on that side. Would anyone have the parts that I need to fix my recoil. This is a short video of the saw in action Thanks Chris