What's on your bench now?

Today’s $30 flea market find. A solid old school bench grinder. I can’t tell the brand but it weighs around 50 pounds. Runs silky smooth and has a ton of power. I laid into the wheel truing it up with my dressing stick and it didn’t bog one bit. Much better than some Harbor Freight model.

 

I buy nowlin match 1911 mainsprings for 1911s that have to heavy a trigger pull
They are 3 for 15.00
I've used a couple dozen over the year's to help with trigger pull without touching the sear engagement

I try to get them under 4lbs
Usually in the 3 1/2 pound range
I've had one in a 1996 kimber since I bought it new
Got some conduit for a target stand

 

Sometimes these things seek me out…
An old buddy of mine that I hadn’t seen in about 5 years had this 61 sitting under his bench doing nothing. He was just going to give it to me, but I didn’t feel right taking it for nothing. In the end I bought him an 18 pack of Budweiser and one of PBR on the way to picking up the saw. He likes his beer and I like my greasy old 200 series Huskies. So… The PTO side case is no good, and it needs a recoil, a piston/ring, AV mounts, another handlebar, ignition, and a slough of other odds and ends. As luck would have it I already have a bunch of parts that will fit it. I think long term I’m going to put a 266XP top end on it, but for now I’m stealing the top cover to put on my 61/272. It looks like the plastic should clean up nicely.

 

Nice score Eric! The beer was a really nice gesture.

 

Not on the bench yet, but soon. I found this abomination on eBay at an okay price and inspiration hit me. I needed a PTO side case for the 61 project, which this thing already has. I didn’t want to run the 61 top end I had, so I’m pulling the cylinder, intake setup and carburetor from this 670. Since Husky impulse lines are routed through the cylinder, intake block and into the carburetor, and Jonsered go from the cylinder using an external rubber hose to the carburetor, I’m using the entire Jonsered setup. Long story short, I’m building this Husky 61 into a 67cc Jonsered in orange. I know the choke setups are different but I’ll worry about that when I get to that point in the build. I already have a meteor piston for it on hand too, just need to buy a Caber ring, and crank bearings. Frankensaw round II.

 

My “abomination” parts saw came in today. After getting the cylinder cleaned up and honed, I see that the base and combustion chamber were already cut on a lathe. I’ll have to check squish before the final assembly.

 

Is that all? Any grinding on the ports?

 

Surprisingly no, the ports were left untouched. I might polish the exhaust port but otherwise I’ll just run it.

 

Lots of learning going on today. I’m liking this. It’s a good thing I’m test fitting everything before the actual assembly process. One of the biggest differences between Husqvarna and Jonsered 200 series is the intake setup. The Jonsered uses a rubber boot around the intake port of the cylinder, which I actually trust more than the Husqvarna intake block that bolts to the cylinder. Heat transfer issues and all that. But sitting that cylinder and rubber intake boot down into a Husky case isn’t quite plug and play. Comparing the two cases side by side, I can see I’ve got to grind that valley in the casting lower on my orange cases. That and add a tapped hole for the intake boot hold down. Other than that, my crankshaft bearings will be in later today, and I already have crank seals and a gasket kit. I should be assembling the bottom end tomorrow, then next week my piston and ring should arrive and I’ll get the top end on.

 

Uh oh. I see problems with my machinist eyes. The case was missing one of the two 5mm dowel pins to line the halves up. I made a replacement dowel and pressed it in. Perfect, the two halves snap right together smoothly. Then I notice there’s a step on the cylinder sealing surface, on the exhaust side only.

About 0.006”
What to do about that?

On the intake side, the two cases are nice and flush. My mind instantly goes to recutting everything flush but then I got to thinking, what about the crank bearing pockets? Are they inline with each other now or skewed since putting that second dowel in? I found a piece of round stock just a couple thousandths smaller than the bearing pockets. It goes through both case halves perfectly. So yeah, that confirms that the bearing centerlines jive and that I need to mill that sealing surface to clean. I’m not the type to just glob a bunch of permatex on there and hope for the best. I guess these are the things you might have to deal with when cobbling together a saw from various sources. Defects and variations in manufacturing make themselves known eventually.


I ended up milling the valley to make room for the Jonsered intake boot.

 

The machining part was a lot easier than I imagined at first. Bolt a couple flat bars of steel across the top machined face of the cases, sit the whole thing on riser blocks and strap it down to the Bridgeport table. I had to add about 0.010” in shims to level out the sealing surface. It went well though and I took bare minimal material off of the cases.


Getting the bottom end together went relatively smooth as well. I made a couple help tools this time around, for pressing the crankshaft into the inner bearing races. I don’t think I’ll ever get to the point where I’m not all puckered up while doing this step At least it’s done.

The crankshaft spins nice and smooth, and is centered perfectly in the cases. Oh, and although my manual milling finish looks a little rough and unprofessional, it is smooth, with just a little texture for a gasket to grab onto.

 

Some precise work there.

How do you keep metal shavings out of there?

 

I didn’t need to worry about that. When I milled the cases, they were only temporary bolted together with no bearings or crankshaft inside. After I got done machining, I took them back apart and gave them one last bath in the parts washer before starting the reassembly process. When I have a bottom end assembled waiting to be finished I’ll usually stuff some clean paper towels around the connecting rod, just so no dust/debris finds its way inside.

 

Project 61/670 is painfully close to being ready to be fired up for the first time. The difference in choke design between the Husky and Jred turned out to be a ridiculously easy fix. If you flip the choke lever upside down so that it catches the mechanism from the left instead of the right, it works perfectly. Choke it, pull the throttle and the choke snaps back open like it needs to.


The bigger issue (and I think it’s unique to this particular carburetor) is that there’s an open hole into the carb body which spews fuel when I pull the saw over. I looked online at pictures of other 670 carburetors but that hole is absent, as is any plug that would be there. So either this is not a 670 carb or someone drilled a hole into this one. It’s slightly smaller than 1/8” diameter, maybe about 3mm. I might try tapping it with an 8-32 and putting a set screw in to block it off…. Unless one of you experts here knows why this hole is here and why I shouldn’t plug it?

 

You may have the recirculating carburetor that was on the early 670s. I’ve never seen one here so I don’t really know what they are about

 

I had to look that up, thanks. So it's my understanding that those work by sending excess fuel back to the tank. I'm not running one of those corresponding Jonsered tanks so I guess my first step will be to attempt plugging the hole, and if it doesn't run right, I'll pony up the dough for a later 670 carb without that feature. I've seen them go brand new on eBay for $80-90.

 

Worth a try. Not sure if it will work or not.
FWIW, the carburetor you want is the Tilly HS260 from a 272 if your high idle throttle lock works. The jred carbs had the high idle built into the choke function

 

My next project is a “parts” Echo cs302 I snagged for about $105 including shipping off EBay. Looks really nice, seller says it has spark but doesn’t run. I have another 302 so worst case is I have a good supply of parts for a while.

 

My blower has been a bear to start the past few times. Time for a tune up and a MM.

 

Been working on my Jonsered 670 Champ. Years ago my stepdad gave me two identical, dead 670's that he had run into the ground. The objective was to make a functional saw out of the two, which I did with a couple of new parts, and have been running it reliably for a few years now. I think I have a fuel vent problem now, as it'll run great until warm, then die, start fine with throttle and then die again. I'll have to do the fuel cap test and listen to hear if it's sucking air upon release... once this oppressive heat and humidity die down though.