• 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.

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    Thanks for your patience and support!

1979 250 OR hard start

cruisetopdown

cruisetopdown

Husqvarna
AA Class
I am in the process of rebuilding a basket case 1979 250OR and am having some issues getting it started. I had the bottom end given the once over by Forrest Stahl, have had the top end bored with new piston wring/bearing by a reputable shop that is know for air cooled engine work and have had the ignition repaired by Vance the ignition guy (and have set it by digital dial indicator to 1.95mm BTDC). I have gone through the carb and have replaced the following with new parts:
float needle/seat
slide needle tube
main and pilot jets
specs are as follows (I'm below 500 ft.):
J6dh6
166/q8
2.0 slide/1/2mm cut
430 main
45 pilot
1 1/2 turns out on air screw


It will only try to fire on the first intitial kick, then nothing, pull the plug and it's soaking wet. New plug, push start down a long hill and I get the same thing, intitial fire, then nothing. What am I missing?
The bike was a basket case and did not run, so I have no starting point to go from.....any assistance would be greatly appreciated.
Wade
 
Did you paint the frame?
If so and even if you didn't sand clean all engine mounting points, ign coil mounting surface.
Temp remove kill button.
Back out idle speed screw, to the point while blipping throttle you can not feel it hitting it( finger tip on screw to feel it).
Could also be bottom end is full of gas.
To make sure remove head lift the cyl off base gasket, lay bike on it's side look down in the bottom end if it looks wet use air hose to dry it out.
After reassembly kick it several times before turning gas on, check spark at this time.
Leave plug loose finger tight, turn gas on 30 sec then turn off and remove fuel line from tank.
Try to start it if no go pull plug ( reason for finger tight) and check spark again, if plug sparks and is dry retry fuel line back on and gas on for 1 min then try it again.
Kicking these old ones is learning the knack it has to be a full quick kick, stand off to the side get up on a secure step it has to be a full snap kick. If your foot hits the foot peg remove the peg until you get the starting issue solved, then tighten the plug.
Later George
 
sounds to me like your gettin way too much fuel that 430 main jet likely to big but ? float height?? did it fill the cranckcase with gas
 
All engine/ignition mount points have been sanded clean of paint, frame was sand blasted so I believe I have good ground...... have disconnected the kill button and have confirmed good spark so the ignition repair seems sound. I will check the crankcase to see if it's flooded and will try the other tips as well. The float height is at 17mm based on my micrometer, so it should be ok?
Thanks for the help, will report back asap.
w
 
Is the idle screw on the carb slide turned in too much?

Pull the spark plug and ground it. Does it spark more than once?
If not clean all your grounds to complete the circuit.
 
Idle screw may be turned in too high, not sure, will step through the suggestions from George.... What happens if the slide is not all the way down, if the slide is open, doesn't that allow more air through?
 
The symptoms seem to indicate crankcases full of petrol . I would remove plug turn bike upside down and turn over engine, you should get a load of petrol out, be careful (speaking from experience ) not to set the bike on fire by allowing petrol to spray onto a sparking plug!! Turn bike over turn fuel on , allow carb to fill up , I use clear fuel lines so I can see fuel flow, remove pipe from carb to prevent further flooding. apply choke then kick over sharply. DO NOT TOUCH THE THROTTLE WHILE DOING THIS, I hold onto the handle bar brace. The choke applies the correct amount, if the spark is right and the engine in reasonable condition she will start ,replace fuel pipe and go off for a ride. I always remove fuel pipe from carb when not in use as taps often leak and let crankcases fill, almost impossible to clear by kicking
 
I did ground the plug with an "aligator clip" from the engine mount bracket to the threads of the plug and had plenty of blue spark consistently (props to Vance), so I will look into the crankcase full of gas theory. It seems that this may be the problem as each time the plug comes out soaking wet. My '82 250xc does not have this issue and starts on 2nd or 3rd kick so I was a bit puzzled as to why this would happen on the '79.
Thanks for the info.
w
 
On the issue of old leaking fuel taps .... I replaced mine a few years ago with a new one from Craig at Huskyclub.com after I had a major issue with some senile old git (me !) forgetting to turn the fuel off. It filled the crankcase until it got to the exhaust port, filled that and the bottom of the pipe until it wee'd all over the floor !
He told me this was the last new one he had with reserve. I now need another NEW one with reserve for the other 390. Any ideas ??
 
When I bought my 1979 250WR, the guys brother could not get it to start. Got a really nice bike for 1200 bucks. I took off the exhaust pipe and went to hang it up on the wall (cleaning the bike) and gas dumped out of it!
I flipped the bike upside down and rolled it in gear with the plug out(like a water swapped bike,crossing a river)
New plug, started 2 kicks, ran like it was new!
I side with the guys who say the crankcase is full of premix
 
I use these petcocks on all my Husky's, Pentons and Maico's, they all have the same 16mm mount. They work great and they have reserve. You can get them in "left" "right" or with a straight down outlet.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-Husqvar...Parts_Accessories&hash=item2a321c6d6f&vxp=mtr

B8syrUWkKGrHqQOKkEzLFKm6t-BM3ylc12QQ0_12_zpsabc5dddb.jpg
 
I had this exact symptom a couple of weeks ago.......it was a rag in the carb throat left while I did the filter (it was dark and the rag was black ok!) check your throttle is returning "clunk" that's how I found it was there...no clunk!

so then it was kick kick throttle wide open and eventually a few blubbers then it fired and petrol went everywhere out the pipe / port join and out the end of the muffler...all over the car!! So I rekon leaky fuel tap or needle and seat, filled crankcase etc.

fuel tap off, plug out, push in second gear to clear it. plug in (cleaned and checked for spark) then kick wide open throttle....or push it..should go
 
If the crankcase is full of fuel it can soak the cylinder base gasket so it will fail down the road and seeds the engine. I had this happen on a used not running 390cr. The PO couldn't start it so it sat flooded till I purchased it. I pulled the spark plug and cranked it over till the fuel was all out of the crank case. I never thought of the gas sitting in the crank case eating the cylinder base gasket plus the crank seals. I ended up going through the whole engine. If I realized this before hand I wouldn't have needed a piston. Gaskets and seals would of fixed it in the first place.

After owning 25 husqvarna dirtbikes I learned to just remove the engine and go through them and restore the bike.

I made it a point to start up and ride a restored husqvarna every super bowel Sunday. I had the bike ready to ride after the super bowel was over. We were outside at 10/11pm starting up and screaming up and down the street. This was a family tradition every super bowel Sunday.
 
cruisetopdown said:
Idle screw may be turned in too high, not sure, will step through the suggestions from George.... What happens if the slide is not all the way down, if the slide is open, doesn't that allow more air through?
Click to expand...

It allows more air to be sucked in but it won't pull in gas through the choke system if the sleeve in the carb is too high. Once she's running set the idle, balance the carb then set the idle again till it's right.
 
Thank Bigbill for the explanation, sounds like a fun tradition! I wasn't able to get to it last night, but plan on working tonight...
w
 
You said that you have the dial indicator set to 1.95mm BTDC. My shop manual for the 250 shows 2.43mm BTDC. Another thing: Are you getting a good blue spark or a weak spark? I had a customer bring me their 390OR that wouldn't start. It had a weak spark. We changed out the mag and it started. I guess mags can lose their magnetism over time. I'm not sure if there is some place you can take them to get re-magnetized, but that could also be the source of your problem.
 
The 1.95 BTDC came from a reputable person on this forum so I trust that it would be correct, however I have been told 2.0MM BTDC along with your recommendation of 2.43MM BTDC, so I will leave to others with much more experience to counter what I've been told. When I ground the plug properly, I do get plenty of fat blue spark so I can only assume it's timing or other possibilities as suggested. As others have stated, I suspect a flooded/wet bottom end, so I will chase that down tonight. I really appreciate all the input and different angles to view this problem, as it's been very helpful to leverage the vast experience on this sight.
w
 
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