• 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.

    When he passed, I worked with his kids to gather the necessary credentials to keep this site running. Since then (and for however long they worked with Coffee), Woodschick and Dirtdame have been maintaining the site and covering the costs. Without their hard work and financial support, CafeHusky would have been lost.

    Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been working to migrate the site to a free cloud compute instance so that Woodschick and Dirtdame no longer have to fund it. At the same time, I’ve updated the site to a current version of XenForo (the discussion software it runs on). The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.

    Unfortunately, the new software version doesn’t support importing the old site’s styles, so for now, you’ll see the XenForo default style. This may change over time.

    Coffee didn’t document the work he did on the site, so I’ve been digging through the old setup to understand how everything was running. There may still be things I’ve missed. One known issue is that email functionality is not yet working on the new site, but I hope to resolve this over time.

    Thanks for your patience and support!

85 250WR

I used one fork seal as Kartwheel described. I replaced my ignition crank seal because it was easy- already had the ignition off. I knew this bike had sat for at least 10 years. If the clutch side seal fails you won't blow the motor because of it. Wouldn't replace unless I had to-it's not my only bike.
 
ive used the 39x 11's as well with no drama..splitting a perfectly good engine is a perfectly good personal choice. a leak down test will solve the question of should I or shouldn't I??.

in reality, knowing the bikes history, the engine will be fine. my experience was a motor full of coolant and no history.
 
I'm +1 for on the fence about splitting for seals. If it'll help you sleep better at night, do it, otherwise, I might take it for a couple trail-rides and see if there's evidence of oil getting out. Hard seals or not, if your bearings are fine, the shaft doesn't move that much side-to-side.

You might add your water pump bearing/seal to easy-to-replace list, since you're probably pulling your clutch cover anyway. Silencer packing could be worth considering, if I remember right, your baffle tube is attached, making what's a relatively easy job for most bikes kind-of a pain in the butt, so maybe silencer packing is off the list....

The added obvious stuff I don't think I've seen yet, tires are always a good idea if it's been sitting, wheel bearings are relatively cheap and easy too. In my experience, your brake pads and shoes may have separated by now too.
 
84scrambler said:
The second half of 85 they were labeled wrx also. If you decide to do a leak down test make sure not to go to high on the pressure , I can't remember off the top of my head what to test at but its not very much or you can do damage to the seal.
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I recall reading somewhere on this site that crankcase pressure testing should not exceed 10 psi, and one person who limits it to 6 psi...
 
I had restored 15 Husqvarnas and had 10 more to go. It got to the point to pay me now or pay me later with replacing crank seals and crank bearings. I've had one or two that ran for a while but ended up rebuilding the engine anyway. So I figure do it up front while I paint the frame. I would rebuild the engines and put them on the shelf then paint the frames. Then the assembly started. I had the production process down. I hate pulling the engine to rebuild it after the bike was assembled. Double the work. These mid 70's to mid 80's bikes are old now. For the cost up front and if the crank is good we're ahead.
 
As far as the Engine is concerned it all depends on corrosion. I bought an 84 250 WR that still had the original Tires on it and its Engine was completely shot due to corrosion. Since You know the bike and its storage all these years You are probably a head of those of Us who buy project bikes with fingers crossed. I'm sure You have already rolled the motor over on the kickstater ? What goes wrong in these motors is that condensation builds in the lower end and the Magnesium Cases rot out. Some times so bad that there will be a hole right in the bottom at the split. If it was mine I would start out by doing a Top end. Once the Cylinder is off You will get a look at the Crank and if it hasn't any sign of rust then You are probably good to go. If there is rust then roll the Crank till You can look straight down at the bottom of the Cases. Some Pitting is nothing to be concerned about as long as it looks like it can still seal. If there is loose corrosion it needs to be cleaned out or it will find its way to the Bearings. If You do decide to split the Cases Husqvarna's use a special Case Splitter that should be used. A search on this sight will show home made versions as well as ways to do it with out a Splitter. The Bearings stay on the Crank un like most other bikes. Take a quick look at ebay and see how many Cases are for sale with big screwdriver marks from somebody forcing everything apart. Don't take it to a modern Motorcycle dealer to have it done right if they don't have the Splitter cause if they don't then they also don't know why they need it. Buy the Splitter or ship the lower end to somebody familiar with these Engines. But if all looks good then I would just give the Cylinder a quick Ball Hone have a real good look at the Intake Rubber some new Gaskets clean the Carb and fire it up.
 
Surprize and XC430 are correct, it all depends on condition. I did not mean to say you should never rebuild an engine, but do it only based on the condition and if it actually needs it. If you inspect it and it is good, why waste the time and money? As already pointed out in this thread, you can change every seal in a Husky except the wet side (which is the least likely to fail) without splitting the cases so those are quick and easy. The only reason to rebuild an engine that you have inspected and is perfectly good like Bill is recommending is so you can brag to people on the internet that you did it.
 
I always change all the seals and bearings on a re-build. In fact I forge and make my own bearings and also go to the Amazon rain forest to harvest my own rubber for the seals I make myself as well (naturally)
 
suprize said:
I would rip that engine out, strip the head and barrel off and send it to a good engine shop to be split and resealed. do the main bearings as well and the gbox bearings and seals.

total peace of mind (and warranty). if you want to have a trouble free 5 years of riding ahead, this is the best course of action.

while its in bits get the ports tidied up and match the base gasket to the transfers etc and get it to factory blueprint specs. replace the needle rollers in the kicker and idler as these can fail and do big damage.

check your headstem bearings, the lower ones are usually shot. grease the swingarm, shock pivots and brake pivot shafts

check the inlet manifold for splits and get a new airfilter and your away!

I see a lot of guys get the "old bike out" and get half way round a ride and everything turns to pooh because they have just fired her up and put it on the trailer. the airfilter collapses, the mains seal fails, it seizes cos there is a split mainifold...the list is endless. sometimes the bike goes back in the corner and the fun has gone out of it just cos they failed some basic prep work.

a great ride is when you know the bike is right and your not having to put up with the leprechaun on your shoulder saying "did you check the...."
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I always do a complete rebuild , they run nicer that way and you know what you've got.
 
Joe Chod said:
I always change all the seals and bearings on a re-build. In fact I forge and make my own bearings and also go to the Amazon rain forest to harvest my own rubber for the seals I make myself as well (naturally)
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Can you knock up a 85/86 lower single shock bearing for me as I don't seem to be able to find one.
 
do you know where Sausalito CA is??.....its nowhere near there !:lol:

its actually an outbackish New South Wales town / city

the chance of finding lower husky shock bearings in wagga is the cube root of zero
 
What we have here is a very wide spread difference of personalities . Some are here just for the build others just for the ride and I'm sure some for a little of both, There's those who have already learned the hard way and regret it and some who just have not learned yet. It's just a matter of time. Is your mug half empty or half full ? Some may do it for the Braggin rights but some were just taught that way , Bearings are black and white but a 35 year old seal is just skimping . just my 2 cents...
 
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