1985 400WRX Cleanup and repairs

This is the prize of my collection. This was purchased about a week after the 1984 250WR. The bike appealed to me because of the price and finding out some history on it that truly intriqued me.

The gentleman I purchased this from told me he bought this from the original owner. The orginal owner was a Husqvarna sponsored rider that rode the bike for one season and returned it to Husqvarna. Husqvarna rebuilt it and gave it to him to thank him for the season he gave them. The bike was then stored for 22 years. The original owner then sold it to the gentleman I purchased from.

I thought the story was extremely exagerated until I had to repair the antifreeze cancered clutch cover. The clutch had been sticking so I did not test it when I bought it. I checked the clutch and found it had all new friction and pressure plates.Little or no wear on any of the gears. The top end had so much compression I could not doubt that it was low use.

The thing that bugged me about the whole transaction was that the guy I bought it from could not remember the name of the original owner. All he remembered about him was he was from coastal Connecticut and had a drinking problem. I have been trying to figure out who he is for the last 5 years. One guy that seemed to fit the description very closely supposedly stopped riding enduros in 1980

Stopped riding in 1980? keh?

I was told it was likely Ron Webster near the end of his competive career. He was a New England enduro rider in the late 60's and thru the 70's that rode the ISDT in 1971 on Ossa and won a Gold medal.

An article I read about him when he was having a 1913 Henderson run on a dyno stated that he rode enduros and the ISDT twice , then stopped competing in 1980. He had lived in southern near coastal Connecticut until he moved to Vermont. I have asked several New England Husqvarna riders who could have had this bike but none of them rode it or knew who did

Installed the left radiator yesterday and have to work on the right radiator. Some of the fins got squashed in storage(lesson learned : store radiators in own containers) I found I can restore the shape of the fins smoothing the shape between a penknife and a pointed Xacto to act as a pusher using the knife as a dolly

Got the right side radiator breathing properly now and installed. That was just over 3 hours of fun and frolics I could have done without, Used my Gerber stainless pocket knife for prying up and forming, Revlon tweezers( got my own, not stupid here ) to smooth by squeezing the misshaped fin against the blade. Also found that a small zip tie could be pushed through the radiator then pulled to minimize prying with the knife to open the passage through the radiator(front to back).

If I had more money to play with this would have gotten new rads and hoses. Plus, this was something of a challenge as it is something I might have to do in a run if it started to overheat.

I am trying to keep this as 1985 as possible so I am doing just repairs to known issues. The silencer that was on this when I got it is steel OEM but missing the cap. I am setting it up thus far with the aluminum silencer from the 1986 400Wr and the 1986 400WR is getting an OEM silencer from a 1987. If anyone knows where I can get a replacement cap for the steel silencer that would be helpful. I really do not want to buy a silencer just for the cap but...

Get an exhaust shop to whip one up, they arnt all that technical..are they?

I will give that a shot

1987 silencer will not fit

Is that because it won't fit the stinger or is it too long to fit the bracket? I am going to need a few goodies from you soon to finish this off. I need the taillight (Hella) lens, the cable adjuster for the front brake perch, and the seal ring for the silencer(I know you have that and the adjuster) Do you have the 400WRX decal for the airbox? I have one that peeled off in storage and would like to have it replicated if not available. I realize it was a 1/2 year release

It has been difficult to find the time to work on this. Between working on my truck, I did not have much uninterupted time to do anything with it. Started working again September 3 so that takes away time as well. I was able to spend about 2 hours on it yeterday actually. I mounted the rebuilt clutch cover on it and had to replace the rubber carb manifold prior to installing the carb. Luckily I must have bought a spare for it because I had forgotten apparently the manifold was all gooped over to seal a crack in it

those cracks were standard from the factory I reckon...never seen an old husky without one.....

Just the rubber drying out over the years. Kept the bike from rusting but dried out all the rubber. The tires as well. Low use but rubber is very hard now

I had a bad "oldtyre "experience years ago when it peeled the tread off for half the tyre! was a bumpy ride home with fear of an imminent puncture.

I saw a mate experience "broken bead" which is hilarious on a 90cc Suzuki trailbike at 60 km/hr... what a mess

Another interesting find on this was that when it was rebuilt, it was upgraded with 1986 suspension links unless the rider installed zerk fitting on the links himself