Slightly disappointing Husky 285CD find.

[Brmorgan]

Picked up this ol' 285 at the scrap yard today:

At least I'm pretty sure it's a 285 - it's 52mm and has the two-piece top cover. $10 took it away. Though it was dirty, I was really hopeful because I could turn the engine over by twisting the clutch by hand and it felt like it had some compression. Upon pulling the muffler and subsequently the cylinder I found otherwise. It looks like a spark plug electrode or some such has bounced around on top of the piston a few times. It took a small chip out of the corner of the piston and the top of the exhaust port in the cylinder, and put a few dents on top of the squish band. The P/C are in great shape otherwise, and it's clear the engine was run for some time after this because there's a distinct carbon smear below the chip on the piston. The damage isn't as bad as it sounds, and it would probably be a good candidate for making a popup - mill the cylinder base down, raise the exhaust a bit to take care of that damage, and mill the corner of the piston down a bit; should be like new then.

As if that wasn't bad enough, the case was all broken around the bar mounts so it wasn't salvageable. However, I was able to salvage a whole bunch of goodies from it:

This is probably the most pristine old Husky pancake muffler I've ever seen on a used saw. They're always smashed all in on the front. Even the guard cover plate is dent-free, just really dirty and a bit rusted. The clutch is in great shape, as is the flywheel other than needing a pawl spring. The flywheel side crank bearing was badly spun in the case; it actually has a bit of play in it. The other side feels good but I wouldn't necessarily trust it. The tank/handle segment is still usable, though needs new AV mounts, and the clutch cover is in good shape, as is the front handle. The air filter and carb appear to be in good order, though the carb might need a rebuild.

Which brings me to a question: are any of these parts usable on a 2100? I know the 285 and 2100 cases are very similar and the topends interchange, but can other parts like the crank and ignition? Also, I thought that 285s had the "CD" designation - this one has the "XP" label on the back of the air filter cover plate.

 

[Kennygee]

Muffler

Tough break on the broken case . It sure looks like that Muffler would fit the 2100 I am working on LOL Do You want to get rid of it ? It sure looks a heck of a lot better than mine.. Brad after looking at it again the clutch cover, top cover, and air filter cover and wrap bar look like they will fit a 2100. I am not positive on that as I have had mine for less than a month and am in the process of painting it. I wish the air filter cover wasn,t broken either!! The place I ordered new fuel line etc. said they could get them new, That was 3 weeks ago, they called again yesterday and said now it is NLA. Bummer.

 

[Modifiedmark]

Brad, that was still a good find. You don't find them everyday, and you got some decent parts out of it.


If you part it, I see a couple things I could use, keep me in mind.

 

[ale]

Nice find.
Good luck on getting that saw running or using some of it's parts to build another.

 

[andrethegiant70]

Just find another case. I just saw another mostly whole 285 go for 26 bones on Ebay. It'd be a fun saw to have, you just need to assess what you'd like to get out of the whole deal.

 

[jockeydeuce]

You sure can't go wrong with that deal for 10 bucks!!!.....Look at that muffler!

If that ignition makes spark it's worth some $$ too!

 

[Brmorgan]

Well, I am going to try to at least find a good case for it, preferably 2100 but I'll take what I can get. I figure I may as well try this P/C set out if I can cobble all the other parts together; they aren't scored at all due to the damage from something banging around in the combustion chamber, but I figure the piston corner and exhaust port damage could cause a noticeable compression loss. What do you guys think?:

The damage on the piston is about 5/16" wide and extends maybe 1/16" down from the crown at is deepest point. As I said I'm pretty sure it was run this way for a fair while, judging by the soot smears below it. Other than that, the piston and rings are fine.

Damage to the combustion chamber from the foreign object. Surprisingly it didn't smash up the squish band too badly, unlike the 480CD cylinder I have that ate a ring locating pin. Also unlike that cyl, the impact marks on this one have square edges rather than being round, which is why I'm leaning towards spark plug electrode.

Here's the exhaust port damage. It's pretty much a mirror image of the piston damage, though it might extend a bit further from the port edge, perhaps 3/32". It might cause a bit of compression loss, but I think if I smoothed it out a little with a Dremel it wouldn't hurt a piston.

Some fins are busted up a bit too. I think I might just grind them down so they look a bit more uniform. I'm not too worried about overheating the saw with them missing, because it had been running with all this crap caked all over the cylinder, and I never let mine get nearly that bad. And it's not like I'd be running it hard for longer periods of time anyway.

Anyway I'd like to eventually end up with a 2100 so I'll be watching out for a topend from one of those, but I'd be happy with a good running 285 too.

 

[sawman2077]

Looks like you have a good parts find. Might make more posting the stuff on ebay. You can at least make your money back and maybe enough to buy more saws.

 

[roncoinc]

AH,,damage is on exhaust side it looks like ??
this may sound strange BUT,,,,,,,long ago it was common practice to shape the edge of the piston to change the timing to get more rpm's,,good or bad it worked...smooth and chamfer the port and smooth the piston and eliminate base gasket and give it a try..i sold a jred 621 (?) last year that had that done to it and the old thing revved unbelievable..got nothing to lose and something to learn and maybe be able to use what you got..low bucks effort but what the hey ??

 

[Brmorgan]

Looks like you have a good parts find. Might make more posting the stuff on ebay. You can at least make your money back and maybe enough to buy more saws.

Yes, that's option #2, though I doubt I'd have to turn to eBay to offload much of this. There are plenty of guys here looking for parts for the big older Huskies. I have a feeling though that my friend can find me a case in his parts pile that will work for me. If that's so, then I'll build a saw. Otherwise everything will stay parted out.