"New" Husqvarna 55 and bars

[Upstatewoodchuc]

So I earned a you suck thread. Went to the local yardsale day and among many useful tools I picked up was a $30 1998 model year husqvarna 55 that ran and was in good shape. Couldn't believe it, I remember a local older farmer had a workbench full of husky 55's and swore by them. The saw runs well, but has an 18" bar and .325 chain with double safety rakers, ive never used smaller homeowner saws and have no idea what .325 chains are good or should I just use the spare new 20" 3/8 bar/chain i have? I was going to throw that on but when I went to do it I discovered that the husky 55 uses a smaller sprocket size and when I went to put on the 3/8 sprockets that fit all my big saws, it didn't fit. What size/part numbers fit these?

[Old Greenhorn]

If that's a .05 gage, you want to throw a 20lpx072 on it (oregon). That chain cut like a bandit and if you have a mind you can refile it for square grind fairly easy. (I think the 072 is for an 18" bar and the 080 is for 20", but check me on that.) Nothing wrong with .325, I use that for all my firewood and smaller tree work. Running .375 on that doesn't make sense to me, anyway.

[Spike60]

Congrats! Great when you stumble on something like that isn't it? And at a garage sale price no less. Being a 1998, you may have scored the rare, coveted, but maybe a little over rated closed port 55. A quick peek at the sides of the cylinder would reveal that to the tranied eye.

As long as the saw has a rim sprocket set up, all you need is to get a small spline 3/8 for the conversion. But I'm with Tom, and I'd just put a good .325 chain on it. Oregon has replaced the LPX with LGX which eliminates that extra bumper link. Quick and smooth cutting chain.

The history there is that the 50/51/55 chassis usually ran .325 chain up until the the "Rancher" version came out. The saw itself was the same other than the rancher decal, but marketing wise it was a response to the stihl 029 as a decent priced homeowner/farm/firewood saw that could handle a 20" bar. The 61 was gone, and could not have competed with the plastic 029 price wise, so the 55 was the chosen chassis to do that until the 455 came out.

[Upstatewoodchuc]

That makes sense, and I believe you are right, from what I read it is the closed port model, does not say rancher, just 55 and air injection on the starter cover. Even with the whooped safety chain that was on It I was impressed with how well it ran for a little 55cc saw. Quite a few years ago I had astihl ms310 (unfortunately, was a lemon from new), and this little 55 runs circles around it.