Poulan Wood Shark Chainsaw - wood smoking. Is chain on backwards?

I cannot tell you about a picture, but for one: chain direction, the bottom of the bar is where the cutting takes place, and therefore, looking at the chain, you will see, on the bottom, the antikick back link is sort of curved, and then the next part is the straight tooth. The highest part of this straight tooth is the sharp edge, and this high part should face towards the motor. The chain, on the bottom side of the bar, is pulled in towards the motor by the clutch/gear. That is your direction of travel.

As to cleaning the air filter, Hopefully you have access to compressed air, as in simply blowing off the dirt. You do not want to use liquid cleaner. Simply blow off any dirt, after pulling the filter away from the carburetor, of course. Then place it back in place.

It may be that your chain is real dull. The top edge of the high part of the flat tooth needs to be sharp. And the outside corner needs to come to a nice point. Remember, there is two cutting surfaces on each tooth, the top is cutting down into the wood, and also that outside sharp corner is openning the cut for the bar to pass through. Proper sharpening, if new to it, can be hard to grasp. Any chainsaw manual should show how to do a good job.

Your chain may need to be sharpened or replaced. However if it feels like the saw just doesn't have enough power to cut the wood you probably need to clean the air filter.

I feel stupid I was doing some work for the neighbour I am also a mechanic and an experienced person with my chainsaw I have not made a mistake like this for a while In my case I flipped the bar upside down this made the chain which was brand new stop cutting wow what an idiot I looked at it and eventually figured it out the words were upside down my clue always remember the bar is directional the arrows point the direction of the rotation and the sharp edge is traveling away from the saw on the top and towards the saw on bottom