262XP Rebuild

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jweier111

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I picked up a small lot of saws last week. They were advertised as Husqvarna 257s. I picked the saws up without a whole lot of testing, got home, and started poking around. Turned out one of the saws was actually a 262XP with a 257 recoil cover. A little further digging and it looks to be an early model with the Walboro HDA-87 carb. It's missing its black tag, so I can't verify when it was built. It was filthy (all the saws were), and missing a few parts. But I'm trying to see if I can bring it back to life.

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I managed to get the carcass stripped down over the last few nights. And mostly cleaned up. The piston is pretty well shot. But the cylinder isn't too bad after a quick honing. Since OEM cylinders are rare...or expensive I'm going to give it a shot. Figured I check the compression with the new piston and ring and go from there. The bearings and seals thankfully look good, so I'm not going to crack the crankcase. Just a lot of odds and ends, broken, missing or worn.

This is where I'm at for parts that have been ordered:

Choke Control
Walboro K22-HDA kit
Seal Collar
Meteor Piston kit with Caber Ring
Gasket kit
Ignition coil and switch

At this point, it's just been several days of parts clean-up. and one pretty heinous gas tank repair. More on that in a sec. These are after some clean-up. Pictured with the filthiest of the two 257s.

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The gas tank repair took a little time and thinking. It had been caked with JB weld.

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I had to peel back that gob of goo to see what was underneath. It's in my nature. I've spent the last 10 years restoring old woodworking machines and remodeling a 120-year-old house. Someone piles a layer of crap over something to "fix it", I want to see what was really wrong in the first place. I can't help myself.

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What? That's all? Initially, I was thinking of just swapping the handle and tank with one of the 257s. I'd read here and elsewhere that the swap was possible and a common solution given how expensive the 262 tank and handle are. But over the past couple years I've gotten pretty good at making plastic repairs to kayaks with a screwdriver and a blow torch. So I figured what could go wrong :blob2:? I cleaned out the tank with brake parts cleaner and acetone to make sure there wasn't any gas left in it. Let it all evaporate, and then cleaned the outside the same way (just to be sure there wasn't any residue). NOTE: IF YOU TRY THIS AND BLOW YOURSELF UP, I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE! I started by heating up the area around the hole to melt the plastic slightly. Then using a plug I had made from a small bit of plastic trimmed from one of the other saws covers; I heated up the plug so it was melted too. With both surfaces melted slightly I put them together (pressing the plug into the hole). Then using a heated flat head screwdriver, I welded the exterior plastic together with the exposed part of the plug. The initial results weren't too pretty. But after a little sanding, it cleaned up to "good enough".

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The repair passed the leak test with flying colors. And no one was lit on fire or blown up (which is always good). Now I'm just waiting till Monday for parts to show up.
 
I picked up a small lot of saws last week. They were advertised as Husqvarna 257s. I picked the saws up without a whole lot of testing, got home, and started poking around. Turned out one of the saws was actually a 262XP with a 257 recoil cover. A little further digging and it looks to be an early model with the Walboro HDA-87 carb. It's missing its black tag, so I can't verify when it was built. It was filthy (all the saws were), and missing a few parts. But I'm trying to see if I can bring it back to life.

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I managed to get the carcass stripped down over the last few nights. And mostly cleaned up. The piston is pretty well shot. But the cylinder isn't too bad after a quick honing. Since OEM cylinders are rare...or expensive I'm going to give it a shot. Figured I check the compression with the new piston and ring and go from there. The bearings and seals thankfully look good, so I'm not going to crack the crankcase. Just a lot of odds and ends, broken, missing or worn.

This is where I'm at for parts that have been ordered:

Choke Control
Walboro K22-HDA kit
Seal Collar
Meteor Piston kit with Caber Ring
Gasket kit
Ignition coil and switch

At this point, it's just been several days of parts clean-up. and one pretty heinous gas tank repair. More on that in a sec. These are after some clean-up. Pictured with the filthiest of the two 257s.

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EXCELLENT BROTHER! GREAT JOB! RESTORED MY 262 11 YRS AGO AND THE SAW HAS CUT 250 CORDS OF WOOD OR MORE. WELL WORTH IT. YOU WILL LOVE THE SAW!
WHEN I 1ST JOINED AS IT WAS TO LEARN HOW TO PORT SAWS. A GUY NAMED LONGFELLOW HAD A VIDEO ON A PORTED 262. THE SAW ABSOLUTELY ATE THRU A MASSIVE RED OAK. NEVER FORGOT THAT VIDEO.
GOOD LUCK! YOURE ALRIGHT. STAY AT IT!
ALL THE BEST!
 
I hope you weren't serious about honing. If you haven't yet don't. If you already did hopefully you didn't lose any plating.
 
I hope you weren't serious about honing. If you haven't yet don't. If you already did hopefully you didn't lose any plating.

@cuinrearview "honing" may not have been the correct terminology. By "honing" I mean I sanded the cylinder lightly with some 220 and 400 to remove the aluminum residue left behind by the piston (being extra conscious about the plating). Been watching Tinman's videos pretty extensively before attempting it, and that waved me off of a couple of things I'm glad I didn't try (for example muriatic acid). Even then, the cylinder wasn't too bad so it wasn't a lot of sanding and the plating looks to be intact. I'm fortunate in that my uncle does small engine repair as his retirement plan lol. So I've had someone local to bounce questions off of too.
 
Very lucky find! Nice work on the plastic welding and best of luck on the repair. My only thought is that I WOULD do the bearings and seals. Not because the bearings would be shot, but the seal is just a bit of rubber that hardens and expires over time. If yours is an early 262, it was probably from 1990/1991, so 30+ years old at this point. But that is just my thinking, AND, I have the case splitter tool to do it. In any event, I hope you have a mightyvac to do a vac/pressure test before trying to run it. Sure it might have been a fellow’s straight-gas mistake that ended that saw’s life. But it could have been a lean seize due to worn out seals. That saw looks like it had a hard life. Glad to see you trying to breathe new life into her. As they say, they don’t make ‘em like they used to.
 
@Derf that's a good call on the vac testing. I did that on the last couple 041s I rebuilt. On those, it's pretty straightforward; hook the pressure tester to the impulse barb and go. How would you go about doing it on the 262xp? I'm not quite sure how to get a solid seal on the impulse pathway through the cylinder without it leaking. Any suggestions?
 
@Derf that's a good call on the vac testing. I did that on the last couple 041s I rebuilt. On those, it's pretty straightforward; hook the pressure tester to the impulse barb and go. How would you go about doing it on the 262xp? I'm not quite sure how to get a solid seal on the impulse pathway through the cylinder without it leaking. Any suggestions?

Have a think about the other entry points to the cylinder that have threaded holes- and then think about making an adapter to fit those threaded holes that terminate in an air barb suited to your vac hose. ;)
 
Have a think about the other entry points to the cylinder that have threaded holes- and then think about making an adapter to fit those threaded holes that terminate in an air barb suited to your vac hose. ;)

🤦‍♂️ Duh! Yeah, pretty sure that the adapter from my compression tester would fit the bill if I'd thought about it. Thanks for pointing int that out @Bob Hedgecutter.
 
🤦‍♂️ Duh! Yeah, pretty sure that the adapter from my compression tester would fit the bill if I'd thought about it. Thanks for pointing int that out @Bob Hedgecutter.
Just dont use any part of the compression tester with a valve in it, or remove the valve and set the piston to Bottom Dead Centre to open the transfers- if the piston is up, it still works, but can take some time to equalise the bottom end to the top end, making the needle jump and convincing you of leaks that are not there.
 
Definitely not a bad idea to pressure/vac test any saw case when doing an overhaul. In fact, for the saw family's I do the most of I've kept destroyed cyls and have capped off the intake and exhaust ports and have a piston stop with hose barb that doubles as a place to hook my Mighty Vac. A couple of these test cyls have an impulse barb so on those I just use the solid piston stop or a spark plug. I do this without the piston installed. This way I just slap the test cyl on with a gasket and test away......saves a bunch of time and doing so is cheap insurance that your time and money are both well spent and if the saw should resist running properly on start up you don't to go all the way back to the beginning to start the trouble shooting.
 
Parts arrived yesterday. I have a few small projects to figure out yet before getting too deep into assembly.

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I went ahead and rebuilt the Walboro hda-87 with a genuine kit. The process was pretty straight forward, but when I opened the carb up I noticed something a little strange. There was still fuel in it, but the fuel was...well it was bright green?It didn't really smell like gas either. I'm not sure it showed up well in the photos. In-person, it almost looked like anti-freeze.

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I gave the carb body a good cleaning after taking it apart. The seat looked good which is what I was primarily worried about. I spent some time digging around for my Mityvac and couldn't put my hands on it (it's been a few years since the last time I needed it). So I went looking to pick up a replacement. $75! WOW! Those went up in price. I checked around a couple of the local auto parts stores to see if they had a loaner. No dice. In shopping around for a replacement online I ran across the "Tecomec" 🤨.

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that just:
1. some hose
2. a 3 way female 1/4" NPT fitting
3. a pressure gauge
4. a blood pressure cuff bulb
5. a couple1/4" to 1/8" barb fittings

I'm pretty sure it is. Or at least I'm sure enough that I ordered the parts to build two of them for less than the cost of 1 Tecomec 😏. Anyway, the parts for the tester should be here Friday, so we'll see if it works. The gasket kit I picked up came with seals, so I may just replace those in the meantime. Though I think I'll have to come up with an assemblage to remove the oil pump sprocket first. More on that later.
 
There was a delay in getting the parts for the leak-down tester. They should be here tomorrow. Then hopefully I can start moving forward on assembly later this week. So to kill some time this weekend I decided to try my first attempt at bar rebuilding. Only one of the 3 bars that came with the saws was either the correct mount (k095) or rebuildable. So I cleaned and dressed this one. And then installed a new nose. 251289852_10159509754238320_9102942841765483105_n.jpg

I'm trying to not get in a rush to get this saw done. But a 034 Super (basically an 036) is going to be landing in my lap tomorrow. Having both a 034S and a 262xp at the same time could be a fun problem to have 😏.
 
A little off-topic, but Amazon is taking its dear sweet time delivering the leak-down tester parts. So I turned my attention to one of the 257s. I needed something to work out my frustration...after the guy selling the Stihl 034 turned out to be either a scammer or just a complete idiot (I suspect the latter). Either way, that fell through. And wasted a couple of hours of my time. Anyway, I rebuilt the HDA-120 from the REALLY ugly 257 after finding out the carb on this unit had a stripped idle screw. The guy I bought these saws off of claimed they had all been run recently (which was bs). Honestly, for the price; I didn't bother starting them. I just gave him $100 and ran. Still, though, all three carbs have looked like this. So what were they running on? Hopes and dreams?

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All complaining about flaky local sellers aside, the rebuild kit did it's job in bringing this ugly old girl back to life. Took a little time to get the carb tuned, but it idled nicely after some fiddeling around. Starts easy pretty easy too. And uh...it oils fine.

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I put it back together while I wait on a new filter and collar seal. Once those get here I think this saw already has a new home with one of the neighbors. He didn't seem to care if it's ugly...just wants a spare firewood saw.

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Time to clean up the bench and get ready to play with the 262! Still going to keep my ear to the ground on a 034/036. My dad and I have some black locust to drop later this month and I think it'd be really fun to see the two saws duke it out if we can. If not...we've got three 041s...that could be kind of funny too :laugh:.
 
I haven't had time to post an update as I've been pinballing between working on saws in the garage and a remodel project in the house. My grand plan for a DIY leak-down tester crashed and burned. The inexpensive brass fittings from Amazon leaked terribly. I may revisit the idea again later with some better fittings. In the meantime, a local place was able to do a leak-down test on the saw and it passed. So I moved on to assembly in between waiting on drywall mud to dry a couple of days last week. I got quite a way along only to realize that the gasket kit I ordered came with a 257 style manifold gasket 😩. The one with out the correct impulse hole. I got one on order and it showed up tonight.

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Things are mostly back together now. But thanks to all the mudding and painting the past week; my carpal tunnel is flaring terribly. So badly, that after an hour of trying I still can't recoil the rewind spring. Half my right hand is totally numb. SO...I just ordered another pre-assembled rewind 🤷‍♂️. I might get antsy in the next couple days and throw the other 257's recoil on it just to see if I can get it to fire. We'll see.

In other news, I have another project waiting for some bench space. A surprisingly clean early model 026. As far as I can tell it just needs a carb kit, air filter, and maybe an impulse line. It starts with gas sprayed down the carb. So that's a good sign. Once the 262xp is done I'll start a new thread about it. I have two 026s now. So I'm thinking of starting a thread on adapting the older of the two to use an MS260 filter and back end. Specifically to document the changes to the tall style tank vent to accept the bigger filters. This early model 026 came with a comically small filter (ala an early 024).
 
Figured I post a quick update. The new recoil showed up earlier this week. I reassembled the saw and tried getting it to fire.

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After a few frustrating minutes of no-go I re-tested the coil (we have spark) and checked the carb. The carb was stil bone dry as was the spark plug. Just as I was thinking I needed to pull the intake stack and check that the impuls hole wasn't blocked...I noticed fuel all over the handle. What?

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I knew I should have replaced the fuel line 😖. It's broken at the second bushing where the line passes into the crank body. Also, it looks as though somehow the tank bushing went missing too.

I was doing this over lunch without enough time to replace the line. So I shot a little bit of fuel mix down the carb and tried it. She fires! I have a length of line sitting here that I think is the right size. Just need the bushing. Once THAT get's here I'm hoping I can get the saw running for more than a minute and try tuning the carb. Frustrating as it seems like it's just one dumb little thing after another holding this up.
 
Enjoyed the thread, makes me want to go to work in the shop as I have a few 200 series that need to be built but I am nursing a busted knee cap and they don't heal real fast on a 80 year old!!
Then you are in a prime position to have at it.....good therapy it is....!! Good luck on the saws and knee!!!
 
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