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 The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.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

Semi-philosophical questions about restoration...

Charliechitlins

Charliechitlins

Husqvarna
C Class
Hey...I'm new here, and new to Huskys.
I used to restore antique road bikes...mostly Harleys and Indians from the 30s, 40s and 50s.
I watched that evolve from bikes winning shows because they looked REAL GOOD to folks getting a point deducted for having a part cadmium plated instead of parkerized, or not having the proper 5-point crimp on the terminal of your ignition wire.
I understand that some love chasing that stuff, but it would have taken a lot of the fun out of it for me...I just kept making them look "real good" and continued having fun.
I also watched prices go from $3k to $30k in a relatively short time.
That took some fun out of it as well.
So the question is...being that these are offroad competition machines that get flogged about in the dirt...
If you guys "restore" a bike to be ridden, in general, how sticky are you about originality?
Are you searching for original fasteners, or updating to, for instance, a nylock nut where there was once a nut and lock washer?
Are you using a fender washer and a hardware store allen bolt to mount the shocks? Or are you searching out the proper hardware?
Would a bike that had all the painstakingly-sourced correct parts be worth THAT much more than if it just had stuff that worked, maybe even worked better, knowing that the bike was going to be flogged in the dirt?
I'm not talking about ones that would be on museum-style display.
I know there isn't one answer for this, but is there a general feeling?
I've been out of the American stuff for years now...just too expensive and I'm too poor to be playing what became a rich man's game.
But I just got this Husky, and I'm having so much fun with it.
The prices are like what I was paying for Harley and Indian stuff 30 years ago.
 
First of all welcome to cafe husky . I have been helping a friend with his Maico collection going thru his bikes cleaning and resolving issues . Not all machines are as desirable or valuable as others which to us dictates how much time and effort goes into each bike . As a collector he feels stock is best but there are exeptions . Example , he has an 81 490 that we are under the suspition that it may have been a privateers national bike due to what was found while going thru it . It is modded but all the modifications appear to be period correct . Now as a rider , if you decided to replace the forks with a disc brake setup i’m sure it would work for a daily rider but then you go to sell it and buyer wants to use it for vintage racing , the buyer may need to go back to stock to be eligable for the class the stock bike should have been in and not be forced into a class with newer machines that it might not be as competitive in . I’m sure i just opened a can of worms but this is my opinion . Remember , it is only origional once .
 
Thanks.
Maico collection, eh?
Maybe another thing on my bucket list.
I remember a guy asking me if I wanted to take his brand new, as yet to be fired 450 around the track (he didn't know how to ride it!!).
This was the summer of 76 0r 77, making me 15 or 16.
I rode an RM125 and I turned the guy down.
That thing scared the crap out of me...I'd never even ridden a 250.
But that aluminum tank and the rear tire that looked about a foot wide infested my brain.
They used to say "Maico Break-o" but I'd be willing to risk it!
 
And Maico Maico made of tin . Ride it out and push it in . Yeah , maico didn’t have a good reputation for reliability back then but they could be made to stay together . My buddy loves his Maico’s , in fact he doesn’t own a bike newer that a 2003 and that’s a maico too . But he does have an 81 420 auto that he thinks is like cheating when he rides it . I’ll say get your bike to where you’re happy with it and enjoy it for what it is . If you decide to change parts or upgrade , store the origional take off parts somewhere so if or when you decide to sell you may have more buyers deciding on a purchase and not limiting yourself selling your bike .
 
I rebuild (not restore) bikes. Original is best. Bultaco guys love having the correct Bulto (?) bolts and nuts on there. The old fiberglass and aluminum fenders were quite fragile. If I find them in good condition I set them aside and install plastic. I like to ride my girls so a nice gas tank usually goes on the shelf and plastic goes on. Upgraded shocks and fork internals are well received. Some people will go to ridiculous lengths and then not ride it.
I have a TT500 that's gorgeous- I don't want to ding it up riding but at some point...

I guess the real question is do you want to ride it or look at it. Dirtbikes get dirty.
 
Welcome...and great question. I've had a few old bikes and this is my philosophy. I want it to look as good as it can for as old as it is! If it's forty years old, it needs patina, some scuffs, a little rust here and there. And I use the stock Husky tanks on my bikes. I want to feel good about it on race day, so that means it needs to look like a Husqvarna. But I understand folks who want to keep them pristine, too. Just my thoughts.
 
I like to build these bikes and make them pretty much original. And I like to ride them . I tried to do an Enuro once on my recently rebuilt 72 450cr. A guy next to me at the starting line said, "Nice bike, your a better man than i am" , I wondered what that meant! Then we started the bikes and I didn't finish a lap. The bike killed me!! So now i just ride the dirt roads and some single track. The bike gets dirty and I give it a wash and she looks new again. Now my 83 500xc has never seen the dirt, Maybe some day!!. You gotta enjoy them either on the dirt or in the garage. I don't enjoy selling them though! Chris
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top