• 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 The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.

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    Thanks for your patience and support!

82 and up Engines in 1978 ML Frame Questions

J

jimspac

Husqvarna
Pro Class
Hi all. I am currently using a 1978 AMX frame setup with 43mm forks that was developed for a TT500 project. Since I have another 78 WR frame available to build on I have decided to adapt the TT500 roller to test the 82 and up engines I will be putting together as I will likely have an 82 250WR or 82 430WR engine left over.

I currently have an 84 250WR lower end mounted on the rear swingarm pivot. I am trying to determine the correct orientation to create front mounts at. I currently rotated the engine on the rear mount and set a shim under the engine where the cylinder studs are parallel with the front downtube. At this orientation the countershaft seems to have the correct height relationship to the swingarm pivot. The lower end seems to sit visually too high but I also realize the engines from the ML series had a different profile than the primary kick engines. Has anyone else ever tried this?
 
I put the cylinder, head, and carb on to try fitting exhaust and a 1978 airbox. As suspected no 82 or 83 pipe can reach the flange on the cylinder and the airbox inlet would need to be moved to use the 1978 airbox. My idea of using this as a floating platform for engine testing is shot but will use this to develope front engine mounting. Because of the need to customize an exhaust I would have to set it up for a definative engine size 250 or 430 as pipe diameters at the head are not identicle. My testing will move to a rolling 82 250WR chassis but have to unstick the swingarm first.

I will post a few pics soon for anyone who might have ideas
 
I am still going to pursue a build like this because I love the ML frames mostly because I did my best riding on a 78 390AMX setup for enduro by Cycle Dyamics. Loved the bike although I always wanted a 6 speed over the Auto. My fondness is strongest to the 1978 model line as they were the best and final of the ML frame. My ideal would be a primary kick 78 ISDT build on the true 78 WR frame I have in reserve for such a project

The front end on this mockup is 1983 IT490 43mm forks mounted in 1985 Kawasaki KX125 gull wing triple clamps. I chose the forks because of the auto compression damping built into them and the triples for the look and the fact they were not selling in my eBay store

The front wheel is on loan from spare duty from the TT500 build with the YZ465 DLS backing plate setup

The tank and airbox are in reserve for future build . There is a 78 swingarm in need to media blasting as it spent too many years left outside here in New England. The swingarm on this now is a 1975 360GP swingarm. Just holding the back of the chassis until the 78 is blasted, painted and new bearings installed The shim under the front of the engine is Ø1.5 Bronze bearing stock to be used for valve guides for (3) TT500 engines and a few Husqvarna project bushings.

iI would like a recommendation for front engine mount material and thickness. I have heard 1/4" for aluminum. What thickness for steel plate?

Opinions and suggestions are welcomed

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Today I mapped the holes to fab front engine mounts. I will try to make and fit them sometime this week as I am on vacation and will post pics. For those of you that may view this as a Franken bike the front end is going on my HL500 build after the steering neck is welded on. Final build will have an 83 WR front end with DLS front wheel. The Kawa green fender will become white someday
 
Jim,
Franken Bike, nah, I once bought a 82 250WR than someone welded on single shock brackets & mid 80's single shock & swingarm. It looked weird , but actually work great, i would have liked to meet the guy who decided to do that & shake his hand, just for thinking the project out & making it work. And what was cool is, if you cut the brackets off
you could go right back to a twin shocker with a stock swingarm. I've got some pics of it some where.
Husky John
 
The front end can go on any 78 -89 Husqvarna because I converted the 390AMX frame to Timken taper bearings before adapting the front end, I still have an 88 Kawasaki KX250 front disc setup made for the triples. The 250 triples can be modded with the conversion lower bearing and may have to fit it to the 86 400WR about to get painted, The tubes are pitted in the travel zone and I am having a hard time trying to find a good set of 86+forks with good tubes
 
A true franken was the donor KX125 that came with the Husky collection I got about 5 years ago. The PO thought he was an off-road engineer. He cut the front downtube and cradle from the KX125 then tossed it. Then he cut the downtube and cradle out of a 1982 WN frame and welded it into the KX frame so he could mount the Husky 250WR engine into it. His cut and fit matching prior to welding was horrible. The downtubes did not meet so he weld in a horizontal connector piece. The KX250 that came with the package would have been a far better choice. If I can find the pic again I will post it just for the shock value.
 
I started on the front engine mounts. My only choice for material was Tractor Supply so I ended up with 3/16" X 3" X48". I needed (2) 4" square pieces but all they had was the piece I bought. So I decided to cut a 1" wide strip for each plate and butt welded them together. Tacked everyting, corrected the joined pieces for flatness, then finished the weld from both sides to get full penetration. One is finish welded but the mig welder started spitting so I shut it down. I may have to finish with the tig that I am not so familar with yet
 
The stem heights are comparable within .020" . Husky stems are 25mm upper and lower. The Kawa stem is 25mm upper but 30mm lower I got a conversion bearing from All Balls that actually fits in the bottom race for the Husqvarna Timken
 
The size of replacement from All Balls is for a 30mm ID, 50mm OD, X 14.25H. Becuase I had new Timken races already pressed into the bearing caps I took a gamble on a kit that had a lower bearing that was 30ID,48OD, 12 or 13H that mated with the Husqvarna spec race, This gave me a thicker profile race that in my opinion would last longer than a thinner profile.

To add some more compatibility info. Suzuki, Kawasaki, and Honda had about the same stem height. Yamaha used a shorter stem so I am using a steering stem from a PE400 to lengthen Yamaha triples. All used 25mm upper and 30mm lower from late 70's to pretty much current day
 
I made some more progress outside of the front engine mounts I have found a way to make the 78 airbox work and a 1982 WR exhaust has about the most compatible routing thru the frame. Only mods required is to either extend the head pipe to meet the exhaust manifold or make an extended manifold to meet and engage the headpipe. The stinge would need to be modded to flatten down or custom curve to fit. When the engine mounts are completed they will enable the repair of the actual build frame which has enlongated swingarm pivot holes.100_1065.jpg100_1054.jpg
 
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The carb bell fits inside of the air intake with the adapter boot removed. Any suggestions for making an adapter
 
Just a thought .... maybe modify or make a new inlet (engine side of the rubber carb boot) and / or use a flat slide carb that maybe a tad shorter.
 
That carb is from a 1986 KX250 I parted out a few years ago. The bell is about an inch or more shorter than the carb that belongs to the 84 250WR the bottom end is from
 
Can-Am carbs go into the airbox like that, but the hole in the airbox is bigger. Can-Am people use Chevy S-10 CV boots, you trim to fit the airbox, then trim to fit the carb. When you have the boot trimmed, curl the cab end inside out, so the outside of the boot is touching the carb bell. Its not pretty but it works perfectly.
 
I just got back from picking up a new mig welder. I got an Eastwood MIG 175 with spool welder for aluminum and was able to pick it up in Bow, NH and still get the Eastwood 3 year warranty.

Got it from Clark Heintz at www.freeshipequip.com Great guy and will ship free in lower US 48 states. I will be back on the engine mounts after getting some welding done on my truck
 
The AL spool welder is worthless. My Dad has exactly the same setup and the 175 is fantastic for any type of steel, but it will not weld AL.
 
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