• 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 The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.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!

Does this bike look hard to start?

Kartwheel you are exactly right about the original lever, the ball of your foot hits the peg, kind of a poor design. I'll see if I can find a decent one that doesn't break the bank. At the same time I have a 400 with the same lever that starts easy, no reed box though, I wondered if the gas going thru the reeds made for harder starting? I probably have a combination of things causing it. I ordered a dial indicator so will check the timing before tearing the top down
 
I have a lever very similar on the '78 390 Auto and it's a PITA. I have learnt to start it with my toes in a fairly stiff soled mx boot ! I have the pigs tail lever on my 390WR 6 speed. A vast improvement but it then eats the boot catch on my right foot where it brushes past the foot peg.
I have a spare side cover for the Auto, so may experiment with welding a stop on the case so I can use the pigs tail on that one too.

DPete .... when you have done your comp test, try squirting a little oil down the bore. Re-do the comp test and if it improves then it will tell you it's rings (at the best !)
 
You have to use a different technic , when using the 76 & earlier kickers, here's what i did on the 76 360 i had & just sold. Like you already mentioned the kicker is seems too short & or your foot hit the foot peg when kicking in over.
So try this, stand on the left side (kicker side) of the bike, but instead of putting our foot parallel with the lever, put your foot parallel with the folding section. So basically you perpendicular with the engine, & although it may seems odd at 1st, once you get use to it, you can actually kick the bike over using the full stroke of the kicker, now. My 360 would start usually on the 1st kick, doing that, and of course make sure you wear a riding boot.
 
ruwfo said:
You have to use a different technic , when using the 76 & earlier kickers, here's what i did on the 76 360 i had & just sold. Like you already mentioned the kicker is seems too short & or your foot hit the foot peg when kicking in over.
So try this, stand on the left side (kicker side) of the bike, but instead of putting our foot parallel with the lever, put your foot parallel with the folding section. So basically you perpendicular with the engine, & although it may seems odd at 1st, once you get use to it, you can actually kick the bike over using the full stroke of the kicker, now. My 360 would start usually on the 1st kick, doing that, and of course make sure you wear a riding boot.
Click to expand...
with this lever, i thought that was how you were supposed to kick these? if you didnt it would have a hard time starting!
 
My method works for me on my Mag. BUT.. bigger bores are/might be different. You have a Mikuni. Hold the kill button so it will NOT start. Believe it or not, when you kick and it did not start, you burned a little of your fuel. Some big bores need a lot of fuel. My 250 starts very easy this way. Any way, kick it a few times with the kill button held. Then kick the snot out of it. Every bike has a sweet spot. If your top end is shot, fix that also. I know most say 125 psi is not enough. It should start. Most modern kick start big bore 2 strokes have a bleed hole to reduce compression for easier starting. Also, what fuel are you using? Is it high octane race gas? Jeff
 
Pump gas, I know it's not the best but my other 2 huskys start fine on it. Retested cold, back to 150psi, 125 warm
 
Did you try the rocking technique ? If not here it is , this does work by the way.
Turn fuel on just long enough to fill up bowl
Turn fuel off
Choke on
3rd gear sit on bike rock bike forward and back ward about 30 sec. give or take , making sure that its cycling through the power stroke.
Put back in neutral
Kick it like Gran pap taught you.
Don't forget to turn fuel on when she lights off.
May be worth trying and you may have to tweak it a little to get it just right. Sounds like your just not getting the correct amount of fuel in there
 
Did you try the rocking technique ? practice it, it works, only way my 390 & 430 start...

I remember I bought a fully restored 79 250OR a few years back, for $800:eek: , Guy spent thousands on it, and then
could never get it started:banghead: . I come to look at it & he pulls it out of the garage , telling me how it never starts,
etc.
I do the rocking technique & it starts on the 1st kick, he stands there with his jaw dropped, says I guess
it just needed a Husky guy. I say yeap & loaded in my truck :D
 
COOL :thumbsup: , and the reason, it works, is this
1) The rocking, primes the cylinder
2) kicking it on the power stroke (a little past TDC) , times the spark better with fuel delivery.

Whatever method works for you, use it! :applause:

I've seen plenty of guys of other NON Husky bikes lay the bikes over on there sides
to prime them, hey if it starts that way, don't knock it..
 
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