fix it or replace it?

[woodrat]

I've got a Husky 51 that I bought new in 1995 and ran pretty hard as a firewood and portable sawmill support saw for many years. I was young and dumb and didn't take very good care of it, and asked it to do much harder work than it was intended to do. At one point I inadvertently ran straight gas in it, and ended up putting a new 55 piston and cylinder on it to get it going again, and ran it for years after that, too. A few years ago it started running poorly, and wouldn't idle, and bogged down a lot, and I set aside and switched to a 372XP for the mill and firewood.

Recently, I wanted to have a small saw again for small diameter alder, and the 372XP is heavy and overkill for the small stuff, so I pulled the 51 out again and swapped a used carb onto it, which didn't help, so I kitted the old carb, which only helped a little. I took it out for a couple of hours yesterday felling some small alder and it will idle a little bit now, but then dies. It bogs down and dies when you tip it on it's side, and generally had really poor power. Today I did some reading and it sounded like air leaks might be the problem. I also noticed it seemed to have pretty weak compression, so I pulled the muffler and carb to look at the piston, and sure enough, it has a big nasty black spot on the intake side of the piston, and a little scoring on the exhaust side, too, and pitting around the exhaust side of the top of the piston. So I went ahead and removed the cylinder, too.

So, I have another 55 lower end that probably has a lot fewer hours on it, that I bought as a parts saw. I think they must have ran straight gas in it, too, as it came with no top end parts. It looks like I can get a piston and cylinder for $120-150 from Baileys and get the lower mileage 55 running again.

My question is whether or not the new saws are better and lighter and cleaner running enough that I should just bite the bullet and upgrade, or is my old 55 still a worthwhile model to keep going? Looks like I could get a new 455 for about $425 or so, and all my small mount Husky bars would fit it. But it also doesn't look that much lighter weight, either. And if I do decide to rebuild the 55, should I plan on new crank seals right off the bat, since this has been sitting around in the shop for several years?

[Timberjack_395XP]

Have seen excellent  55s lately  going in southern Indiana around $125 tough for me justifying rebuilding a saw when you got deals laying around  i keep my rebuilders for part saws

[woodrat]

The tend to go for $200-300 around here. If I could pick up a clean 55 for $125, I would jump on it.

I'm leaning towards fixing this one.