1999 Husqvarna 55 - rebuild it or not

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Johnieappel

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Hi Folks,
I just joined this site and have found a wealth of info on my Husqvarna 55 in these forum threads. I'm a bit of a newbie at rebuilding a chainsaw but have experience with auto mechanics and I love fixing things so it all makes sense, to some degree.
My Husqvarna 55 project was a non running, grime caked, beat looking gift from a friend. At first I couldnt get spark but after removing the pull start and coil, cleaning all the gunk out of the flywheel / coil area and putting it back I had spark. I made sure I had fresh fuel and tried and tried to get this thing to at least fart. Even tried ether, but still nothing. I pulled the muffler to look at the piston & it looked ok, slight scoring but I thought I'd seen way worse. I then did a compression test after reading I should have minimum 120 psi. I got 105 at best and that was after several tests. So I pulled the top end apart. It looks so - so, the cylinder was in better shape than the piston. I've attached some photos. What I did notice was a lot of slop in the wristpin. I pulled the wristpin, expecting the needle bearings to be dust but they were fine. the wrist pin itself was badly worn where it contacts the piston on either side. So....not finding anyone else with this issue after searching the forum threads I decided to ask you all your opinions. I dont want to sink a lot of money in this saw so I thought maybe I'd just buy a new piston and wristpin and see what happens. I found thatbHL has a Meteor piston for $36.99. As far as the bottom end, any suggestions on what to look for? It seems ok, looks clean, (inside), no up and down play in the connecting rod to crankshaft. There's a fair bit of side to side movement though.
Also, I saw somewhere in the threads somebody mentioning they werent rebuilding their saw because of bad crankcase AV. What is crankcase AV? ( like I said, I'm a bit of a newb...) Everything else with the saw seems fine and in reasonable shape for its 22 years of service.
 

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A guy on the other forum said that Lil Red Barn has Jonsered 45mm 590 pistons that will work with that cylinder. You can also use a Husqvarna 350 piston if you open up the area below the lower transfers, like in the pic. If you decide not to fix it and want to sell the cylinder, let me know.

To use a 350 piston cut the lower transfers like this.
 

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