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 The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.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

restoring a Up-Tite 87 250 XC...

nothing wrong with fork boots, they do protect the chrome. nowadays neoprene socks are used instead but dont have the look.who cares if kids dont like em? most kids dont even know about the swede bikes anyway..my coworkers poke fun but those are the ones i havent rode with yet. the ones in the know try to warn them..
the 87/88 fork may look the same, but are much different internally than those before. the only problem is the wheel must be used along with the disc, caliper, and forks. the disc diameter is the same, but you get the dual piston brembo that is quite similar to modern tech.
 
SPEAKING OF MODERN TECH I WAS TALKIN TO THE LOCAL SHOCK GURU THAT HAS MY 87 SHOCK ALL IN PIECES HE SAID IT ALL LOOKED GREAT GUESS IT REALLY IS A LO LO TIME UNIT ANYWAY HE SAID THAT IN A LOT OF WAYS THAT 30Y/O SHOCK IS BETTER THAT MOST OF THE NEW ONES HE SAID IF IT WAS HIS WOULD PUT A OIL/DUST SEAL IN IT AND A NEW BUMPSTOP IT ROTTED AWAY COMPLEATLY AND CALL IT GOOD WHAT DO YOU GUYS THINK THE OIL LOOKED GOOD AND IT STILL HAD NITROGEN IN IT WOULD YOU DROP $135 ON FRESH INSIDE GUTS AND DOSE ANYBUDDY HAVE A SPRING FROM HELL LIKE WELL UP IN THE 6s AND SOME FORK SPRINGS TO FOR A BIIIIG MAN
 
Everfree, here are the pics. Showing spline wear. I'll mail it to you and let you evaluate if you like.
 

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justintendo said:
nothing wrong with fork boots, they do protect the chrome. nowadays neoprene socks are used instead but dont have the look.who cares if kids dont like em? most kids dont even know about the swede bikes anyway..my coworkers poke fun but those are the ones i havent rode with yet. the ones in the know try to warn them..

the 87/88 fork may look the same, but are much different internally than those before. the only problem is the wheel must be used along with the disc, caliper, and forks. the disc diameter is the same, but you get the dual piston brembo that is quite similar to modern tech.
Click to expand...


justintendo,
I like the fork boots better.
I've been told that fork boots, if kept on the forks nonstop and on forks that don't get regularly serviced, they may cause moisture to collect inside and contribute to chrome pitting. I'm going to use them but keep an eye on the chrome tubes.

From '86 to '88, Husky made changes every year to the right side up fork / brake combo. I think the following is correct, but maybe someone knows better...

'86 - single piston Brembo, fixed caliper, floating disc rotor, unpainted magnesium forks legs, new single fork seal
'87 - two piston Brembo, floating caliper, fixed disc rotor; fork improvements (new fork dampers w/ hydraulic compression value, an anti-bottoming device, top out spring
'88 - no changes to disc brake, more fork improvements (new fork dampers w/ better valving flow w/ more valve holes and larger top off spring and washer)

In my experience the '88 fork is the best (and last) right side up fork Husky made and a nice improvement from the 87 fork which is still a good fork.
All the Husky right side up forks are easy to service vs. the upside down WP forks.

The two piston brake is nice too, but probably about 75% the stopping power of a modern Husky front brake.

If you can get '88 forks, they would be the best upgrade. I'm looking for a pair to replace my 86 Auto forks.
 
Darrel78 said:
Everfree, here are the pics. Showing spline wear. I'll mail it to you and let you evaluate if you like.
Click to expand...
Darrel78,
Thanks for the pics. The kickstarter looks good.
I've measured my kickstarter and it is bent a small amount, which is not unusual. Probably could be used, but a straight one is preferred.
PM me.
Here's a pic of my 250 kickstarter on the left and a 510 kickstarter. You might be able to tell mine is bend on the spline end.
IMG_1697-2.JPG
 
and I started at the beginning of this thread and you have written the bible on the 87 and 88 forks and brakes way back there..haha, I KNEW I read about them somewhere

don't mind me...:rolleyes:
 
everfree said:
justintendo,
I like the fork boots better.
I've been told that fork boots, if kept on the forks nonstop and on forks that don't get regularly serviced, they may cause moisture to collect inside and contribute to chrome pitting. I'm going to use them but keep an eye on the chrome tubes.

From '86 to '88, Husky made changes every year to the right side up fork / brake combo. I think the following is correct, but maybe someone knows better...

'86 - single piston Brembo, fixed caliper, floating disc rotor, unpainted magnesium forks legs, new single fork seal
'87 - two piston Brembo, floating caliper, fixed disc rotor; fork improvements (new fork dampers w/ hydraulic compression value, an anti-bottoming device, top out spring
'88 - no changes to disc brake, more fork improvements (new fork dampers w/ better valving flow w/ more valve holes and larger top off spring and washer)

In my experience the '88 fork is the best (and last) right side up fork Husky made and a nice improvement from the 87 fork which is still a good fork.
All the Husky right side up forks are easy to service vs. the upside down WP forks.

The two piston brake is nice too, but probably about 75% the stopping power of a modern Husky front brake.

If you can get '88 forks, they would be the best upgrade. I'm looking for a pair to replace my 86 Auto forks.
Click to expand...



one note is the 86 is a carry over (pretty much) of the 85, obvious difference is most of the 86 lower legs I have seen are not painted

my brother took the guts out of the '85 CR forks and adapted them to a pair of '87 forks, they are shooter and more progressive than any early fork I have ridden

the biggest difference of the '86 to'87 was the double seal change and the removable bushing that gave the fork greater stability
 
troy deck said:
SPEAKING OF MODERN TECH I WAS TALKIN TO THE LOCAL SHOCK GURU THAT HAS MY 87 SHOCK ALL IN PIECES HE SAID IT ALL LOOKED GREAT GUESS IT REALLY IS A LO LO TIME UNIT ANYWAY HE SAID THAT IN A LOT OF WAYS THAT 30Y/O SHOCK IS BETTER THAT MOST OF THE NEW ONES HE SAID IF IT WAS HIS WOULD PUT A OIL/DUST SEAL IN IT AND A NEW BUMPSTOP IT ROTTED AWAY COMPLEATLY AND CALL IT GOOD WHAT DO YOU GUYS THINK THE OIL LOOKED GOOD AND IT STILL HAD NITROGEN IN IT WOULD YOU DROP $135 ON FRESH INSIDE GUTS AND DOSE ANYBUDDY HAVE A SPRING FROM HELL LIKE WELL UP IN THE 6s AND SOME FORK SPRINGS TO FOR A BIIIIG MAN
Click to expand...


I have not seen an Ohlins spring stiffer than 4.9 N/m. I'm sure some above 5 are out there. If you need 6, than you may need to special order one or find one in another brand of shock, like a WP spring... I've heard some WP and Sachs springs will fit. Hall's can make a shock spring to fit your Ohlins.
 
Bodger said:
and I started at the beginning of this thread and you have written the bible on the 87 and 88 forks and brakes way back there..haha, I KNEW I read about them somewhere
don't mind me...:rolleyes:
Click to expand...


Ha ha, Bodger. Sorry about the lengthy fork talk. I've been discussing them with some local Husky experts, so it's been on my mind.
And my mission to upgrade my bikes to their best has me focused on this. Maybe this Husky stuff is making me lose it!
 
everfree said:
I have not seen an Ohlins spring stiffer than 4.9 N/m. I'm sure some above 5 are out there. If you need 6, than you may need to special order one or find one in another brand of shock, like a WP spring... I've heard some WP and Sachs springs will fit. Hall's can make a shock spring to fit your Ohlins.
Click to expand...
Ohlins definately made stiffer springs. The stock spring for my 1985 500 XC is a 5.7,(Ohlins paint code blk/red/blk). The paint codes for the 6's are blu/-/blu. 6.1= blu/purp/blu, 6.5=blu/blu/blu, 6.9=blu/wht/blu. The springs are out there, the "fun" part is finding them...
 
andy at hva has the poop on the best forks. in regard to the chrome pitting, ive sanded the crap out of them with 1500 to remove the sharp seal cutting edges and gotten some descent life out of seals as opposed to hunting down fork legs. (this is a fix to go riding now and not later...)
 
It's been a few days... but I have been working on the 250.

Can't believe how much time parts cleaning takes. Geez. Good thing I don't do this for a living, I'd go broke. Since I have it all apart, I'm trying to get everything looking nice. Amazing where you find rust and how many bits are rusted on this bike. It must have been stored out in the woods.
I don't exactly have a shop, so work takes longer and I have to improvise. I make do without some things... like a vise. I got to get one.
Anyway, got the fork clamps cleaned and painted, new taper bearings in the steering stem, cleaned, de-rusted, rebuilt both forks. Next up the swing arm and front wheel.

IMG_1710.JPG
 
the used kicker spring from the 87 250. As you can see, it's tilted... leaning to one side.
Usable? What do you think?
IMG_1711.JPG IMG_1713.JPG
 
I messed up...
...was working on getting new parts back on the polished swing arm. Pressing new bearings into a thirty-year-old NOS chain roller cracked the roller. I should have warmed up the roller first, maybe that would have prevented this:
IMG_1726.JPG
These original rollers are hard to find. Argh! At least I didn't crack the bottom one. XC bikes have 2 rollers. WR bikes have 1 lower.

Next, considering whether to clean up this linkage knuckle. Originally they used a fiber washer, now wasted, as an outer spacer... I think. Don't think new fiber washers are available.
Bearings look good, was thinking of just cleaning and greasing it up good. I can get some of the bearings - but not all.
Anyone have any ideas on how to service this?

IMG_1731.JPG
 
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