tl;dr Executive Summary: 1 - don't work for A-Holes. 2 - don't let an idiot have any power over your chainsaw.
A friend of mine talked me down from the ledge and I threw in the towel and drove in to town...I am waiting on a call back from the incomparably great dealer in Indiana - D&D - on whether they can find me the last 550 XPG Mk I still for sale in the USA...
Which would be the 12th saw I have purchased in my life.
Where is my back-up saw? I gave my beloved old 346 XP to a friend of mine who is still running a small fleet of them. Once I ran a 346 and a 550 on the same job doing all the same things and experienced the fuel efficiency of the 550s, I knew I would never run the 346 again, even in this situation. And I expected to have a new saw by now anyway.
I didn't bring my 562 XP to this job because I am cutting thousands upon thousands of 4" diameter stems and just didn't want the weight of the 562 in my hands for it. And also don't want a 550 Mk II in my hands for the same reason. And I am not running my 57cc beast brush-saw on it because a lot of the stems are in the 50'+ class and you need more directional felling control than a brush saw offers. And I want one last Mk I 550 for boneyard service for all the small little parts - like the just exactly perfect screw for one of the mounts that I need right now.
Why didn't I just buy a 550 XPG when the news of it's discontinuance came out? Because I was on Federal work all winter and the shutdown hurt me pretty bad - 5 weeks of no income. Afterwards, a complete A-Hole in the US Forest Service (all his co-workers wish he would get fired already, but that never happens in the gub-mint) refused to pay me for a partially completed, biologically time-limited job - even though the shutdown effectively nullified a time-sensitive contract anyway. I finally had to play my "Trump" card: I told his Supervisor I was calling my Congressman about the matter and she cleared up the situation in about 30 minutes. If anyone in USFS gets a "Congressional" it is a permanent mark in their personnel file. Just say the word "Congress" to most of them and they start to quiver and shake. But I didn't get paid for Feb-April until the end of June.
Why didn't my regular high-volume dealer send me a new saw by now? Though I explicitly told him not to cash my check until he was sure he had an XPG for me, he has been told 3 different times by his various 'reps' that a 550 XP Mk I was on its way to him and then on its way to me. Unfortunately he has a brand new rep who continually blows the key detail that I want the heated handles. Every time I request a regular 550 to just get this over and done with, he promises an XPG is on the way...but time is up, now.
Why did the screw fall out of a key mount on my saw? Because I let idiots get a-hold of it.
About a year ago, my chain brake quit working. My regular shop, which employs a full-time saw mechanic, said he had never seen this on a 550 and couldn't figure out anything to do except swapping out a new clutch cover - cleared the problem instantly. $55, iirc, no labor charge.
This summer, that happened again. I went down the mountain to closest local shop and asked them to order a clutch cover. They refused. They told me the mounts were too wore out, and that would fix the problem. My key mistake here is that I didn't just walk out the door right then, but then I was an hour away from the next closest shop. I compounded the mistake by letting them keep the saw to fully diagnose the problem. They promised new parts in 2 days.
They didn't call on the 2nd day. On the 3rd day, they said, sorry, parts not here yet. On the 4th day, they gave me my saw back - with a brand new clutch cover. The counter guy was acting real squirrelly about the whole thing and would only charge me $25, no labor. He also knocked $20 off the price of an expensive new pro grade hard hat I picked up that day. He knew he had cost me a couple days of work, imo. I like to support small local shops when I travel for this crazy Silviculture work I do.
It seems clear to me now that they probably ordered new mounts, put them in, that didn't fix the chain brake problem, and they had to back-track to my original request of just getting a new clutch cover. And they probably didn't use LockTite when they did all this, and the damn screw fell out now. I'm just glad vibration hasn't broke anything else before I noticed it.
Along the way on that same trip in the shop, I asked them for a new sprocket. I upsized this 550 to 3/8" chain, because I have always run 3/8" and I have lots of spare old chains and bars to use on dirty firewood work when I need to. I have run 3/8" all my life and just like the routine of it at this point. It is my understanding that plenty of people do this on a 550.
But at a small shop that largely sells 70cc and 90cc class saws and otherwise those super cheap consumer/"homeowner" 50cc saws, pro-grade 50cc saws are more rarely seen and this idea of having a different sprocket on a saw than new from the manufacturer....just makes the wheels fall off (have seen that before, elsewhere). My shop has a bucket of about 50 of them just sitting on the work bench at all times, and just changes them out, no labor charge, any time you want one.
This shop, nope. While I had those days of downtime, I stopped by the local watering hole where I met this same shop's diesel mechanic, and one of their other parts counter guys, too. They both told me in so many words to just take my saw out of that shop ASAP, because they didn't know what they were doing with saws. Although they didn't have an Oregon 3/8" sprocket, I was told they took my clutch off anyway, just to look at the sprocket I had on there, despite my telling them that if they didn't have one of those sprockets, to leave it alone and I would get one later on down the road. Plus...they were, in theory...receiving a parts shipment...which should have easily included one of these sprockets.
So you'll never guess what happened a week after I got my saw back with a perfectly working chain brake, but no new sprocket. Clutch spring broke. Coincidence? Hmmm.
Was I going back to that shop for a clutch spring? Nope. I recently compounded my bad luck here by cleaning out my tool box of lotsa old Allen bolts and yes, clutch springs, in part because I expected to soon own a brand new 550 and then have a back-up one with plenty of spares on it for this type of situation, and in part because my newest water-proof toolbox was a little bit smaller than my previous water-proof toolbox, which had started to leak.
So I went to 2nd closest local shop. They did not have any clutch springs, but did have a whole clutch. But their saw tech had called in that day. I decided to let them just put in the new clutch and a new needle bearing on and let an experienced tech go over the whole set-up and put it together just exactly perfectly, so I could get through this job with no more down time while I was stuck in cashed check purgatory on buying a new saw like a sensible person. Mistake #3.
Saw tech called in to not work again the next day. On the 3rd day, he did show up, but he couldn't put my new clutch on, because 2 other saws were already on the bench. The real reason he couldn't complete such a short little job (my regular guy would need about 10 minutes, or less, I would expect) is that this hardware store keeps him busy servicing walk-in customers, copying keys, answering questions, etc. And they seem chronically short-handed every time I am in there. A customer being unable to work for a day is less important to them than a customer in the store having to wait an extra 5 minutes for a new key to be made. Their business, not mine.
So, yeah, I need to dial in clutch removal work on my own. And, this area sucks. This so-so hardware store should at least have the Allen bolt I need from Husqvarna, or in their regular trays of bolts, but then a month back they couldn't match a bolt on my Ford truck, so you just never know when you are working out in BFE, where I usually prefer to be, until crap like this ruins the deal.
But this shop does have one last 550 XP Mk I for sale and even though it runs a 20" bar with a .325 total klutz safety chain, I am probably buying it here in another hour or so, unless D&D's warehouse place has one last dusty 550 XPG in it somewhere....
