• Husqvarna Motorcycles Made In Sweden - About 1988 and older

  • Hi everyone,

    As you all know, Coffee (Dean) passed away a couple of years ago. I am Dean's ex-wife's husband and happen to have spent my career in tech. Over the years, I occasionally helped Dean with various tech issues.

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84 500CR Fork Leg/Slider Bushings

halffast

halffast

Husqvarna
B Class
Yep , mine are worn pretty good . I looked at an exploded parts diagram and it looks to me like the slider is one unit and the bronze ( brass ? ) bushings are not available or replaceable . Anybody ever do any kind of fix other than finding new ( Are there any ? ) or less worn units to use ? I'm kind of tired of spending time and money on auction sites buying junk until I get decent parts . Went through that getting cases for my Mag . Is it possible to get an I.D. that small knurled ? Is the bushing cast in the slider ? It looks to be pressed in . Any tips will be appreciated . Thanks .
 
You may have to update to a later model like a 1986 leg that the bushing can be replaced in. If your upper tubes are straight and non pitted that is a good option to buy yourself timebefore replacing a bushing and the abilty to replace when you need to. The 86 legs seem about the same approx. length and are interchangable with the 84 tubes and damper rods. I know it has been discussed here previously but the shops that replaced bushings in the later forks did not seem to make a commitment to rebush the older. It may well be cheaper to just replace the legs with newer.

One problem with knurling a surface is that you have to bore or turn to requalify the bore or OD. On bronze that will reduce the working contact area and promote even faster wear. Knurling is more of a Band Aid rather than a solution
 
The beauty of those forks is that there is nothing to tamper with except the top out washer and the fluid. The earlier 35 mm forks don't seem to even have bushings. The later ones with two teflon coated metal rings, one coated on the inside and one coated on the outside if I recall correctly. Where does all that aluminum suspended in the fluid come from. Is it all from the spindle in the middle? How much comes off the sides of the outer tube/lower leg. I just ran them and appreciated the lack of stuff to tamper with. They have the amount of travel which the industry seems to have settled on. Now I update to more modern stuff. There should be good parts out there. 125 cr bikes go to the parts pile. My 86 430 auto had the bronze bushings when most of the other stuff was the teflon stuff. If those were the same distance below the axle that would be another good donor model to look at. You might check to see if the tubes are in fact straight. I bent one and have no idea where or how.

Fran
 
I checked the tubes with a straight edge and they are nice and straight and in great condition . The reason I say the bushings are pretty worn is that when I slid a metal straight edge rule down the surface of the bushings , it actually hit the lip on the edge of the sliders inner surface . It only does this towards the sides which surprises me as I thought most wear would be front to back . Also , the damper rods had some metal " peeled " downwards on the bottom end flared area . I think the only way this could happen is if the upper bushings allowed the slider to travel at enough of a tilt to make contact with the lower guide bushing in the bottom of the fork tube . Hope all this makes sense as I might not be using some of the correct terminology . I contacted a gentleman in Canada who has quite a few new and used Husky parts hoping he might be able to help me out . He said those upper bushings are pretty loose fitting when new and would have to be worn to an extreme to cause problems . What that extreme is , I'm not really sure . Today I am taking the parts to my riding buddy who owned a KTM shop for years and get his opinion too .
 
When you tighten the bolt on the bottom of the forks I always did that with the fork fully compressed. That fixes the spindle at least within the area of the opening that rides up and down. Perhaps if this wasn't done or the placement moved that could help explain the deformation you describe. Some aluminum definately wears off that center spindle but I can't say I have seen what you describe. Maybe side to side wear would be because the axle was clamped down with the fork seperation different than the top clamp. Aren't there little dent like things in those bushings so one could judge relative wear from one spot to another?

Fran
 
With reference to the ID of fork leg and bush, I got Andy at HVA factory UK to measure a new bush (closed up) to come up with the 40.20 as opposed to the smaller id of the fork slider.
 
When tightening the axle clamps on this bike I've always used this procedure : Snug the axle nut , slide the axle assembly so the nut is tight against the fork slider and tighten that clamp . The clamp on the other side is loose so the axle can just slide through it , put the front tire against an immovable object and pump the forks up and down a few times , stopping with them collapsed as far as I can get them and have a buddy tighten that clamp . Then I pump the forks some more and feel for stiction . It is the method I've used on all my bikes and is the best way I know of to achieve alignment .

The damage to my damper rods is similar to what Widebeest90210 links showed although not as severe . I'm sure it was cased by contact with the washer/spacer that is snap ringed in the bottom of the tube . That washer/ spacer as I call it is labeled as a " valve " in the parts diagram I looked at ( availabe on the site www.halls-cycle.com , click on parts and accessories , under husqvarna click on parts and a list of all years of Huskys will pop up to choose from for complete parts diagrams and part numbers ) . There is plenty of clearance between the damper rod and the ID of the " valve " , so I reasoned that the bushings being worn allowed the slider to cant over enough to allow the damper to contact the " valve " . Possibly deflection of the fork tubes under an extreme bottoming situation could contribute to this also . Maybe it is a combination of both .

My former bike shop owner buddy examined the forks yesterday and thinks the bushings are worn but still in acceptable condition to use . I used a Dremel tool to polish a chamfer on the inner edges of those valves as they seemed very sharp to me . I'll also use the method ( mentioned in the one link above ) of tightening the damper rod , bottom bolt with the fork totally collapsed to try and get the rod centered in the bore .
 
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