The Two Strokes

Oct 04, 2022

It is that time again everyone. Time for the new puzzler. 

Do you remember back in the old days the old Saab 95 or whatever it was. That thing had a three cylinder engine. It was a two stroke engine. Now some of you might not know this, but back then, at this time, the two stroke kind of fell out of favor for a lot of reasons. First of all, they were a little underpowered. Four stroke engines have valves and there are four strokes of the cycle which is required to complete revolutions of the crankshaft, and you only get one power stroke out of the four, the two stroke gets you power out of every two strokes, so the thoery is you have twice as much power. It doesn't really happen that way, but that is the theory.

Anyway, two stroke engines, they're inefficient, they're smoky, noisy and they're not environmentally friendly. Because they have to mix the gasoline and the oil and it's a pain in the neck. And in many cases, engines that had been two stroke engines eventually got replaced by the cleaner burning three stroke or four stroke engines. 

So in the past, Saabs, lawn mowers and mopeds were two stroke engines and they switched them to four stroke for all the reasons above. 

So here is the question. I have a chainsaw that is a two stroke chainsaw. You have to mix the gas and the oil and it's no fun. And the question is, why doesn't anyone make a four stroke chainsaw that uses gasoline? Lawn mowers have all been converted to four stroke engines, so why not the chainsaws?

 

Answer: 

So, why has no one put a four stroke engine on a chainsaw? Most all other things have been converted to a four stroke engine by now. Snowblowers, lawn mowers, Saabs... Everything but your electric razor and chainsaws. The one machine which I've never seen have a four stroke engine is a chainsaw. Why is that?

Well, the reason things like chainsaws have two stroke engines is because you can operate the engine upside down, sideways, hanging off a tree, any way you want. You don't do that with a snowblower, and you're not supposed to do that in a car! 

So there you have it. Good one!

 


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