Duane Allen

Also had this problem, my saw is 10 years old and has never been a heavy chain oiler. When it finally reached the point of not oiling enough to cut without external oiling (which I would never put up with...) I pulled the pump off - the procedure for this is found in several places on the web. The trick for me was to remove the oil pickup half of the rubber "saddle" that surrounds the aluminum pump body and ream the inlet hole. Evidently the rubber swells with age and the hole in the pick up no longer aligns with the intake hole of the pump. You can open the hole up to about 4 times the original area and still have a good seal to the pump. After doing this my saw oils like a champ, to the point that after idling 2 minutes, then goosing the engine a nice ribbon of oil will wash down the length of the bar.

I also opened up the inlet and discharge ports of the pump by running a bit slightly larger than the original holes through them (using a drill press). I did this before the rubber mod, but this did not fix the problem. BUT, it may be a combo of the two operations that is the solution. Try simply opening up the hole in the rubber inlet first. Kind regards...