Historical Discussion, Multiple Top End Option Saws

[MarcS]

Watched a video by a guy calls himself Novice Lumberjack running a 2165 against a 562. Not faulting anything about it, his content is great, but I started thinking about all the different saw chassis that offered different displacement cylinders to meet different price points and market to different customer bases. Wondering who was the earliest to adopt this? I know squat about American saws but Stihl was early with the 041 and 041super, Jonsereds with the 70e and 66e, Husky with the L65 and L77. Anyone else know of any earlier examples by manufacturer? Anyone know who was first to start doing it?

 

[FederalQ]

Dolmar and Solo had quite a bit of parts interchangeability amongst series of saws in the past including the later 64/73/7900 and 665/675/681. I don’t know how far back that started.

 

[Jay Hansen]

Many of the 50s American saws that ran the Power Products and West Bend engines offered a range of engine sizes on a single chassis.
Also:
Homelite 650/750 and 450/550
McCulloch SP 105/ SP 125, 795/797, and many others.
Poulan 4200/4900/5200
Just examples, each company had many more saws that shared a chassis. And yes, Dolmar did it as well as Pioneer, Partner, Solo, Canadien........

 

[jacktheripper]

Oldest I know of is homelite 7-29 and 5-30.

 

[Bill G]

How about the Stihl Contra and Contra S

 

[jacob j.]

How about the Stihl Contra and Contra S

Stihl was probably one of the first OPE manufacturers to do this on a regular basis. There's not really a ton of differences in the short blocks of the 050/051/075/076 either. In fact, a timber faller buddy built a dandy 051/076 a few years ago that runs well.

Poulan had a few saws they did this with in the early days. I think some of their sand-cast saws were different top ends on same/similar crankcases.

 

[Bill G]

The Power Products saws were mentioned but another is West Bend. The 610/820 are the same design with different displacements.

 

[Bill G]

Stihl was probably one of the first OPE manufacturers to do this on a regular basis. There's not really a ton of differences in the short blocks of the 050/051/075/076 either. In fact, a timber faller buddy built a dandy 051/076 a few years ago that runs well.

Poulan had a few saws they did this with in the early days. I think some of their sand-cast saws were different top ends on same/similar crankcases.

The 045/056 for the most part also

 

[Jay Hansen]

Stihl was probably one of the first OPE manufacturers to do this on a regular basis. There's not really a ton of differences in the short blocks of the 050/051/075/076 either. In fact, a timber faller buddy built a dandy 051/076 a few years ago that runs well.

Poulan had a few saws they did this with in the early days. I think some of their sand-cast saws were different top ends on same/similar crankcases.

I don't know how often Poulan did this with the sand cast saws, but the 31 and the Super 31 had different strokes and used the same top end. They accommodated the longer stroke by using a spacer sandwiched between two gaskets under the cylinder.

 

[jacob j.]

I don't know how often Poulan did this with the sand cast saws, but the 31 and the Super 31 had different strokes and used the same top end. They accommodated the longer stroke by using a spacer sandwiched between two gaskets under the cylinder.

I think McCulloch did it too - There was a factory stroker kit for one of the early kart engines and if using the stock head, there was a thick gasket for it.