Hi All,
Posted this at Thumpertalk as well but wanted to make sure that the whole Husky community knows about it.
I purchased a ‘new’ 2009 Husqvarna WR 300 to replace my 2006 Husqvarna TE 510 in July 2009.
In early August, I was riding the bike briefly at ‘wide open throttle’ and experienced a complete seizure of the engine – the bike had approximately 4 to 5 hours of total time at that point. At this point, thinking that I was on my own, I ordered a piston kit & gasket kit from Tasky’s Metric Cycle in Everett, Washington, and dropped the cylinder off at Mongoose Machinery Port Coquitlam, BC, to repair and re-nickoseal the cylinder.
Given that no one had been able to tell me what had caused the engine failure, I took the further precaution of having a local machinist conduct ‘leak down’ test on the rebuilt engine. A serious leak was quite evident where the V-Force reed block meets the rubber boot from the carburetor - instead of merely bubbling the soapy water, the liquid was ‘blown’ right off and the applied pressure immediately bled away. The screw driver points to the location of the air leak at the top of where the boot and the reed block meet.
Upon closer inspection of the leak point, the V-Force reed block has a stamped 6 digit code right where the sealing O-ring from the ‘boot’ from the carburetor is therefore a tight seal is impossible (see attached images). The machinist attempted to use ‘3 Bond’ to seal the leak but it was unsuccessful. In the image below, the silver compound on the reed block is the 3 Bond and it clearly shows where the O-ring should seal and that the stamped digits make this seal impossible.
FIX ***
I used a piece of carburetor gasket between the carb boot and the reed block:
take the engine side carb boot off and trace the outside and inside edges of the boot on the gasket material
cut along the line outside and inside lines
the 'inside' line will likely not completely match thus additional work will be required to ensure complete airflow
This fix seems to have resolved the problem - now we'll see if I get any factory support on the engine seizure...
One cheap and quick way to find an air leak is to have your bike idling and then spray carb cleaner or starter fluid around any joint that could affect the fuel / air mixture; carb boot / reed block, base gasket, etc. If the engine rpm changes when the carb cleaner is applied then you have an air leak. The most definitive method though is to do a proper leak down test.
Given the number of WR 300 owners discussing the difficulties finding effective jetting combinations, this air leak is quite evidently a major contributor to this problem. This error is clearly a manufacturing oversight and needs to be remedied as soon as possible.
I am very interested to hear if anyone else has experienced this issue.
Cheers.
Posted this at Thumpertalk as well but wanted to make sure that the whole Husky community knows about it.
I purchased a ‘new’ 2009 Husqvarna WR 300 to replace my 2006 Husqvarna TE 510 in July 2009.
In early August, I was riding the bike briefly at ‘wide open throttle’ and experienced a complete seizure of the engine – the bike had approximately 4 to 5 hours of total time at that point. At this point, thinking that I was on my own, I ordered a piston kit & gasket kit from Tasky’s Metric Cycle in Everett, Washington, and dropped the cylinder off at Mongoose Machinery Port Coquitlam, BC, to repair and re-nickoseal the cylinder.
Given that no one had been able to tell me what had caused the engine failure, I took the further precaution of having a local machinist conduct ‘leak down’ test on the rebuilt engine. A serious leak was quite evident where the V-Force reed block meets the rubber boot from the carburetor - instead of merely bubbling the soapy water, the liquid was ‘blown’ right off and the applied pressure immediately bled away. The screw driver points to the location of the air leak at the top of where the boot and the reed block meet.
Upon closer inspection of the leak point, the V-Force reed block has a stamped 6 digit code right where the sealing O-ring from the ‘boot’ from the carburetor is therefore a tight seal is impossible (see attached images). The machinist attempted to use ‘3 Bond’ to seal the leak but it was unsuccessful. In the image below, the silver compound on the reed block is the 3 Bond and it clearly shows where the O-ring should seal and that the stamped digits make this seal impossible.
FIX ***
I used a piece of carburetor gasket between the carb boot and the reed block:
take the engine side carb boot off and trace the outside and inside edges of the boot on the gasket material
cut along the line outside and inside lines
the 'inside' line will likely not completely match thus additional work will be required to ensure complete airflow
This fix seems to have resolved the problem - now we'll see if I get any factory support on the engine seizure...
One cheap and quick way to find an air leak is to have your bike idling and then spray carb cleaner or starter fluid around any joint that could affect the fuel / air mixture; carb boot / reed block, base gasket, etc. If the engine rpm changes when the carb cleaner is applied then you have an air leak. The most definitive method though is to do a proper leak down test.
Given the number of WR 300 owners discussing the difficulties finding effective jetting combinations, this air leak is quite evidently a major contributor to this problem. This error is clearly a manufacturing oversight and needs to be remedied as soon as possible.
I am very interested to hear if anyone else has experienced this issue.
Cheers.
