Is husqvarna's identity gone?

[Motosportz]

And Cagiva could have just made air cooled bikes with aluminum tanks and steel swing arms. Just think of the money they would have saved.

Sounds good.

 

[Kawagumby]

Nah, aluminum tanks would be a lot more expensive than plastic, but high-zoot for sure - then you've got to deal with an air-cooled engine at least 7-8 lbs lighter than what's out there now.. that would be unfair competition!

Or...you could just remanufacture any good 6 speed air cooled smoker bike from the 80's, stick a modern suspension under it and let us ride like we want to. Hmmm, a 235 lb curb weight, low maintenance ring-dingy - :-)

 

[Big Timmy]

Yes, Great idea, KawaGumby now you are thinking I like that idea myself.
I'm one of those who owned a CR500 myself. I picked it up relatively cheap at the time from a guy who just bought a KX500. He was on a roll and buying a new bike every year back in the late 80's. I stripped the CR for its engine, rebuilt it completely, new crank, bearings, gears, clutch, cylinder port work and rechambered the head and shaved 3/8 inch off the left center case at the swingarm pivot area on my Bridgeport. Shortened the case sleeve and refit the side thrust washer and installed it in my 86'TRX250R Honda 4trax. It was a very fast and potent flat tracker and TT weapon at the Lodi Cycle bowl for many a race. Built the chamber, built rear adjustable lowering links. Fabbed a 1"Shortened swing arm. Built front swaybars, bumbers, handle bars, nerf bars, bumpsteer set up with idler arms and separate outer tie rods. A arms 12"wide flat track, 3 piece wide staggered champion beadlocks on the rear of a Durablue axle. Hand groove Hoosier rubber. Lots of other hand made bits and pieces as well. Including eventually a complete tig welded 4130 chromoly round tube frame. as the stock premium grade material from Honda seemed to crack quite often. Thank god I was a welder. It was a thing called vibration. I had early on welded solid pieces about 6" inches up into the handle bar ends to keep your arms from going to sleep. It helped but that whole chassis was like a tuning fork. You had to be a bit nuts to ride it at its potential. It would power wheelie in all 5 gears on pavement in excess of 85+ MPH. I actually drag raced it at the now defunct Baylands/Fremont dragstrip back before it was closed and it ran in the low 12s without proper gearing. It was a Japanese beast, trust me.

But it was a great all around trail quad when reset up for that task. Chasing Jackrabbits off the trails in AZ was quite different than doing the same thing up in the San Jaoquin Valley though. Cactus becomes a problem, so does never ending barbed wire where I live on the US. Mexico Border in S.E. AZ.

By the way I payed cash up front having only looked at a dealers pamphlet at a local Suzuki (Jorgy's) in Stockton Ca. He asked me if I wanted to test ride their new Suzuki 500 quadracer when they got it and I told him " NO". He said "Why Not" and I told him "because I was going to own it" and I went home and got him the cash immediately. He had never had anyone do that in his carreer ( payup front for a new up coming Dirt bike let alone a Quad) This was in October 87 for a new 500cc Suzuki Quadzilla that didn't even arrive until the first week in January of 88'. When they went to the new Blue engines. This was one of my heavily modified toys as well as well but the Honda weighed about 60 lbs less, with the CR500 engine in it. The poor guy I sold it too has been in a wheelchair since about 1993 ever since he first rode the thing. It became lost somewhere in Cochise County AZ.since then. I refused to fabricate a new upper kicker for it to keep it running after the poor guy ended up nearly killing himself. The only way it would work with the Honda splined Kicker Knuckle I had stashed as a spare. The upper section of the kicker had to have a rather long Steel upper half to clear the 4Trax frame and also be long enough to kick rearwards without taking your leg off. Those were the days. I love 2 strokes too.

What did I do with the rest of the CR500? The rolling chassis of the CR500 was cut up and all its rear suspension set up, was grafted on my chassis jig to a 84 XR 500 4stroke Honda chassis that belonged to a friend of mine it handled superbly after that was done. forks and front wheel also.Talking about steel swing arms? His stock XR one and shock went in the trash. I made way more than my money back of that CR500 in about 2 weeks. I dumped the Quadzilla for 2000.00 after a year. Kept the TRX Honda with the CR500 engine until after I moved to AZ in 91 and got out of Quad racing altogether.

I'm not totally down on Japenese Dirt bikes or 2 strokes. i have made a fortune off of them building things for other people. Hell just alone I've built well over 200 handrolled cone 2 stroke expansion chambers over the years since about 1974 for every imaginable combination you could think of and lots of engine swaps as well. None of those pipes were cookie cutter stamped in 2 halves believe me.

Building 4-stroke exhausts and custom headers is much less demanding, working with mandrel bends and building drag race cars for the past 25 years. Dirt bikes are just something to have fun for me now. The most important thing to me as a fabricator is having something that others can't have or don't want to pay for.

I myself never thought I would admit it either but New and Modern 4 strokes are cool........

"Sorry" if this is considered rambling or "off the subject". Just wanted to clarify I didn't hate Japanese dirt bikes or quads or cars for that matter. I drive a heavily Modified 2006 Nissan 350Z as a daily driver, and I just wanted to share some of my old days experiences with you all. I'm Just home today recovering from shoulder surgery a week ago and yesterday I had 4 screws surgically removed from the titanium plates i had installed during a double open reduction I had from a wrist fracture last year on the same arm. I did this slamming my hand on a 3rd gear, get off into my Cycra hand guards last July. They are a necessity if you don't like Cactus thorns in your knuckles through your gloves where I live. So had nothing else to do today but full around online. Will be off for about 6 weeks.

I've looked at the new Husqvarnas and KTM's. It is a shame they are not going to build the Husabergs anymore. I was about ready to buy one of the 70'degree 570s last year right before I broke my wrist riding. I think the New Huskys will do fine in the next few years.

 

[Big Timmy]

By the way, they have been talking about Aluminum gas tanks for the last few years replacing some of the dirt bike tanks as the chemical make up of modern gasoline can clearly penetrate all plastics at some point. Notice how they have been getting thicker and thicker over the years. The aftermarket ones are getting quite thick and heavy as well nowadays, there is a deteriation of these plastic tanks especially when octane boosters are added and race gas etc. is used.

I've seen many plastic fuel cells in drag cars collapse in on themselves and become gummy on the exterior from racing gasoline over the years and most of these thinks never hardly see day light.

Thats why I run a twin pair of handmade 10 gallon aluminum cells in my 66" Plymouth Belvedere shown in this picture. It's a street car and in order to get to the next few towns away from me it had to have a range over 50 miles. I could have bought cells identicle to these for less but they aren't as thick as my own and my sheet metal brakes do a nice job folding 3/16 thick aluminum with a radius bar installed on them so I made my own.

 

[Big Timmy]

What a load of crap.

You can mix parts on Jap bikes too (I do), and to say their components are somehow inferior says to me you are inexperienced when it comes to Jap quality. Japanese tooling is generally something to be admired. Bust a case? You can nearly always get a case half from another same model Jap bike and it will work just fine. I've owned KTM's and presently own a TE310 and I've never seen anything mechanically or quality-wise superior about them - but they do provide a different market option. Frankly, I prefer the simplicity of a clutch cable over a hydraulic unit, for example.

Funny you should say how you pass Jap bikes...like the bike is somehow the defining limit to speed. If that were the case, my old Jap KDX200's are quite a bit faster than the multitudes of shiney new KTM's I pass at the local riding area on a regular basis. But I'm not kidding myself... KTM's are the hot item now and plenty of newbies buy them too, reminding me of the mid 80's when everyone had to have a Honda CR500.

Youv'e just said it yourself "another case half from the same model Jap bike". Thats what I am saying about cheap and plentiful. "Oh yaa and cookie cutter". I believe Japanese tooling is very admirable but quality of materials used are 2 separate things. I've only been tig welding aluminum Japanese motorcycle cases for 40 years and doing reconstruction on them when entire sections were blown out and missing. I imagine I probably made a few house payments having done so since I bought my first Lincoln 300 amp Tig welder back in 1978. I guess it only got used for all those who couldn't find a spare or didn't have the spare bike pile or funds to buy a new one.

I've never built a 2 stroke engine in my life without removing one dowel locater pin at a time to spend quite some time lapping the center cases together with lapping compound and certainly not without an unmatched set of center cases. Or they would likely suck transmission oil and burn it out the tailpipe or leak air themselves.

Some of the "What a load of crap" you referred to must of been the impurities that looked like potmetal that floated out of some of these paper thin cases when in a weld puddle situation. It would make you think the cases weren't even made of aluminum, not like anything else casted in aluminum in my lifetime, I've welded on including items Like Kieth Black and Indy Maxx Aluminum Hemi Blocks I've owned and repaired and countless Harley Davidson cases since the 70's. Ive done plenty of japanese magnesium cases as well. Like CR 500 waterpump housings and old left kicker clutch cases on Huskys as well. Not to mention countless sets of several old VW cases back in the day that were made of magnesium which were prown to cracking around the clutch end crankshaft bearing seals.

Just a thought on knowing nothing about superior Jap Quality. I own a 7000.00 dollar bead blast cabinet that gets things pretty damn clean and ready for any welding first. Rule number one. Take a carbide burr and cut the crack to daylight and start welding. I have a heat treating oven as well, for cylinder head repair work. I guess I bought all these things from a general lack of experience. Thank you.

You could probably smack my old Maico cases with a good size hammer without doing any damage, nearly anywhere you pleased. I wouldn't recommend doing that to anything or anybrand nowadays without wiping up a puddle. I cant remember ever making a skid plate for one of my old Maico's or my buddies Husqvarnas back in the old days. Made quite a few in the last few years for bikes and repaired even more for quads. its like a necassity nowadays to have one or your cases are history.

 

[Motosportz]

I need to get this done.

 

[Steve Kanya]

If you can find a better bike than the KTMHUSKIEBERG 350 let me know. Who cares what sticker is on the tank. Ask anybody who's ridden one, I have. BTW, parts are available now unlike my present Huskie.

 

[Big Timmy]

I need to get this done.

I like it great idea and thats what I like to see. A true swap.

 

[Motosportz]

If you can find a better bike than the KTMHUSKIEBERG 350 let me know. Who cares what sticker is on the tank. Ask anybody who's ridden one, I have. BTW, parts are available now unlike my present Huskie.

I ride them all the time, rode one today (KTM 350) not overly impressed. It is a good bike but there are a lot of good bikes and there is a lot of bikes I would personally get before this one. Not bashing it at all, has a lot of nice qualities. I actually like the 250 SXF better. I like my 165 better than both. But thats why they make a lot of different bikes.

 

[K5PL5]

I need to get this done.

Im just curious, what made you decide to put the Yamaha engine in a Suzuki?

 

[Motosportz]

Had a YZ465 back in the day and always loved those motors. Got the RM from a friend for a song and it had a steel frame and the motor would fit without to much hacking. Always wanted a modern bike with a older air cooled motor so I got into this experiment very inexpensively.

 

[Kawagumby]

Here's one of my monsters. a 1987 KDX200 with modern Yammy forks, yammy rear brake cyl, late kdx disk , and upgraded rear suspension. I'm still sorting it out somewhat, but this one is very light, about 218 dry and has a lower seat height - great for slow technical stuff. Hey Timmy, I'm sorry 'bout my harsh reply, but not all our experiences match one person's perspective. My take is that every brand has it's strengths and weaknesses, depending upon what the rider does with the bike, and how he/she maintains it. I'd rather be riding than wrenching, but even so, my Jap bikes have been absolutely bullet-proof since I got serious about off-road back in 1980, and I've owned/raced a boatload of 'em (every brand too).

 

[Kawagumby]

Had a YZ465 back in the day and always loved those motors. Got the RM from a friend for a song and it had a steel frame and the motor would fit without to much hacking. Always wanted a modern bike with a older air cooled motor so I got into this experiment very inexpensively.

Me too, I had forgotten about the noisy fins though! I raced a YZ465 back in the day, the engine was a dual threat, pull like a tractor or scream the big HP. The yama-hop was a killer though - a modern suspension is key.
Nice bike!

 

[Dirtdame]

Here's one of my monsters. a 1987 KDX200 with modern Yammy forks, yammy rear brake cyl, late kdx disk , and upgraded rear suspension. I'm still sorting it out somewhat, but this one is very light, about 218 dry and has a lower seat height - great for slow technical stuff. Hey Timmy, I'm sorry 'bout my harsh reply, but not all our experiences match one person's perspective. My take is that every brand has it's strengths and weaknesses, depending upon what the rider does with the bike, and how he/she maintains it. I'd rather be riding than wrenching, but even so, my Jap bikes have been absolutely bullet-proof since I got serious about off-road back in 1980, and I've owned/raced a boatload of 'em (every brand too).

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You know I gotta agree with you there!

 

[robertaccio]

Ive sidelined it but Im still in work on the same type thing Motosportz is air cooled modern crmo chassis small bore 2T bullet proof fun-enduro bike 200cc YZ125 air hammer.

 

[Motosportz]

Ive sidelined it but Im still in work on the same type thing Motosportz is air cooled modern crmo chassis small bore 2T bullet proof fun-enduro bike 200cc YZ125 air hammer.

I expected to be riding my monster months ago but chose to ride all my free days away. That little 165 is relentlessly screaming at me to go ride. Like a Lab with a frisbie Maybe I'll get to it after the rain and snow start to fall.

 

[huskydude59]

I guess for me I only started noticing Husqvarna once the Italians took them over. Their style is unmistakable. When BMW put there hat in the ring at least they respected what the italians gave the husqvarna brand... I maybe a little cynical but I believe husqvarna as I know has gone. The future I think may be just another KTM biased design... Thank god they havent got hold of TM...

 

[rasputin]

Husqvarnas haven't been Husqvarnas since the move to Italy and the phase out of all the old Swedish motors.

this is definitely a valid point of view.
there's no way to deny that.

however, the "italian era" lasted about 25 years.
in those years, plenty of people worked passionately to build cool bikes, and to win races. and they were quite successful.
25 years is enough time to form an identity. so yes, there is (or was) an "italian husqvarna identity".
there's no way to deny that, too.
(denying that would be like denying an "l.a. dodgers identity", or an "american identity".)

to me, an italian husky is as much "genuine" as a swedish one. this is not a result of ownership or marketing, it is a result of passionate people who dedicated their lives to husqvarna.
when pierer took over, he killed this identity instantly. so yes, it's gone now.
there's no way to deny that, either.

austrian-husky are trying to shape a new (artificial) "identity" through marketing efforts. this may or may not be successful. whatever.

r

 

[Norman Foley]

r,
We can argue the fine points forever and we also, all bring our load of personal baggage to the table.....
I have no way of knowing, but Thomas Gustavsson might not see the new identity, as artificial.

 

[Motosportz]

however, the "italian era" lasted about 25 years. in those years, plenty of people worked passionately to build cool bikes, and to win races. and they were quite successful.

Thats my feeling to. Its a long period of time back to the swedish bikes so lots, probably the majority, of husky fans are the italian husky fans.