• 4 Stroke Husqvarna Motorcycles Made In Italy - About 1989 to 2014
    TE = 4st Enduro & TC = 4st Cross

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 The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.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

13 TE449 Questions

Wonderlost

Husqvarna
Hey guys, new to the Husky world. Just picked up a 13 te449 and love it! Huge improvement over my drz. The guy I bought it from did some mods and I was looking for some info from this community.

He added the zipty oil recirculating kit, gas cap, oil filter cap, front axle nut, Fmf pipe, and it has the stage 2 plug plugged in.

I live in Grand Lake, CO at about 8700 ft. When I first got the bike up here it would crank and crank without starting up but fired great in denver at about 5300 ft. I went for a couple of rides then installed a new wps li-ion battery and it fires fine now. Obviously the new battery helped but does this ecu do some learning?

I also did an oil change and followed some directions I found on here. Filled to about halfway up the sight glass then went for a short ride. Parked the bike and the next morning had a pool of oil under the bike. It seemed like the oil came out of the hose to the drain plug from the recirculator. I put a hose clamp on that, refilled and have had no more issues. Anyone else had that problem?

The one persistent problem is the gas tank vent hose. The evap canister has been removed and plugs were put in the vacuum line and the vent hose. I realized this after I went for a long ride and opened my gas cap to find an incredible amount of pressure built up. I filled up the tank and removed the plug from the vent line and now gas comes out of the vent line.
Do I need a new check valve or what is going on here?

Thanks for all the help, sorry for the long read. Any other tips or tricks about this bike would be greatly appreciated!
 
Welcome - bike sounds great, i'm pretty new here too, but some answers:

Battery definitely helps with starting in general, they're not great on the standard battery.

I haven't had any oil leaks from the drain pipe, but i've barely run mine since installing. When you say refilled to half way, was that half way with the bike cold?

If you've got a photo I can probably help about the check valve on the tank, mine has one on the right hand side line running from the tank, when looking from the back of the bike.

Enjoy!
 
...The one persistent problem is the gas tank vent hose. The evap canister has been removed and plugs were put in the vacuum line and the vent hose. I realized this after I went for a long ride and opened my gas cap to find an incredible amount of pressure built up. I filled up the tank and removed the plug from the vent line and now gas comes out of the vent line...

get rid of the check valve- w/o the evaporative canister it is no longer needed. gas tanks need to breath in and out. Run your vent line all the way to the front of the bike & higher than the cap. the steering stem is the traditional terminus.

btw, are you sure the tank wasn't under a vacuum after the long ride? it sounds kinda similar to pressure.

good luck.
 
@donjohnson the bike was cold, I put in about a quart.

@trenchcoat85 You know, it could have been vacuum but I'm really not sure. When you say the steering stem is typically where the hose goes do you mean up the right side of the bike? Have any pictures of that?

Thanks for the help!
 
Mods need to approve you, it'll happen soon and then you won't need to wait anymore.

The oil level goes up a lot when hot, I find filling to 1/4 cold works well for me.
 
@donjohnson the bike was cold, I put in about a quart.

@trenchcoat85 You know, it could have been vacuum but I'm really not sure. When you say the steering stem is typically where the hose goes do you mean up the right side of the bike? Have any pictures of that?

Thanks for the help!

yes, all the way from the vent (which in your case is actually LOWER than the cap), along the right side of the bike (under seat, over airbox iirc) to the steering stem. The vent hose has to go higher than the highest fuel level somewhere along its run, at a minimum. also think what happens to your fuel level when you go uphill or wheelie. On my son's '12 511, there was plenty of hose left over from the evap system to splice together something- t'weren't hard at all.


steering stem: every dirt bike in the world right? (well, even ktm has a hose-holder on the steering head.) this is not a 449/511 but...

IMG_0116.JPG

read this thread (initially about brake master cylinder) for vent line tips
http://www.cafehusky.com/threads/rear-brake-master-cylinder-part.84222/#post-580225

also, since you ride at higher altitudes: be aware that filling a bike with cold gas (gas station has underground tanks more than likely) and riding or trucking the bike up to higher altitudes the volume of gasoline will grow (mostly due to heat and less air pressure, but there's a increase of vapor pressure too) which will push gas out.
 
Wonderlost, welcome aboard. With the ZipTy kit you can run the proper amount of oil 1150cc. In fact I run 1250-1300 regularly with no issue. Make sure the vent host isn't pinched or kinked. The Li battery is a very good investment . When you are on race map 2 on the dash, the O2 sensor is no longer in the loop so there is no sampling going to the ECU.
 
TC thanks for the help, my hose wouldn't reach the stem but I got it higher than the cap and zip tied to the frame.

Husky- Awesome, I will measure out about 1150 next time. Interesting about the ecu sampling. Could it be beneficial for me to remove the plug so it can learn this altitude?
 
TC thanks for the help, my hose wouldn't reach the stem but I got it higher than the cap and zip tied to the frame...

well, this stuff is cheap (3/16" radiator overflow/vacuum/windshield washer line basically); and you should have a few sections left from the evap system to splice in. Nevertheless, you should be okay. But I'd stick a small loop in it- it might help next time you drop the bike in a creek (or cross a frikken deep ford).
 
The previous owner removed the evap system and had none of it left besides what was was left on the bike. There is a low section between the two ends but a loop is a great idea, will mess with that in a bit!
 
View attachment 70935
So the fuel line on the left in this pic is supposed to be routed to the steering stem?

yes, the VENT line on the BIKE'S right side is usually the fuel system vent. The other one is the header tank vent. confirm this just in case someone has messed around. btw, we're talking about a freely-vented system here- not using the vapor recovery system

There is nothing special about the steering stem. it's just a convenient high place to hold a vent tube. Alongside the neck is fine, btw.

Some folks worry about liquid gas washing out the grease in the stem bearings, but it's pretty hard to do this for a couple of reasons: the bearings are on the other side of a (usually) solid steel steering stem (not to mention rubber seals); the bike would have to be facing downhill, maybe upside down or purt'near; and anyways the vent tube should be long enough to touch the fender IMHO. Disclosure: I have had raw gas dribble out my vent once or twice in my lifetime. I betcha 90% of all dirt bikes have been vented in this manner (pre-1970, the steel gas caps were vented from underneath... cars too)

speaking of caps: your style cap is infamous for warping or something, making it hard to re-insert and take off. There's a few non-vented aluminum ones on the market (ZipTy has a nice one)

Pro-tips: stick a jet in the end of your vent hose to reduce the size of the outlet. Sometimes I put a small piece of air filter material in there, too. The longer the vent line run, the less dust makes it to the tank.
 
Running it by the master cylinder is not a great idea due to the header and muffler connecting right there, but running it away from the exhaust to the ground is acceptable. However, if you ride in wet and muddy conditions, then a higher route for the vent is a good idea.
 
Running it by the master cylinder is not a great idea due to the header and muffler connecting right there, but running it away from the exhaust to the ground is acceptable. However, if you ride in wet and muddy conditions, then a higher route for the vent is a good idea.

A vent has to go higher than the outlet/liquid level, for a short while, at least. Or else you've just installed a drain tube or siphon tube.... not a vent- and someday you WILL get liquid gas coming out.

the tank setup on "you guy's" 449/511s makes this requirement a bit more difficult to do. if you wanna end the vent run in this area (not recommended for a few reason already mentioned) at least put a small loop in the top/highest point of the vent run.

...but it's easier just to run it all the way up to the steering stem. counter-intuitive, I know... but there you go.
 
There should be a one way valve behind the side cover that prevents this issue, if someone took it off put one back in theyre cheap and solve the issue.. Your husky dealer should have them mine had to be replaced a couple times.
 
Back
Top