• 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 The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.

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    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!

83 husqvarna 175wr??

Bigbill

Husqvarna
Pro Class
Is it worth picking one up to restore?? Rare?? The 175 appears to be a 125 with a big bore kit?

Not much in parts availability. No decals, don't see any 175 piston.

Collecting a wise move?
 
Joe Chod will weigh in...
Cool bike and I've always wanted one. If you're going to collect it... get it! If you want to seriously ride and race it, lack of engine parts will be tough.
 
There are NO pistons anywhere in the world. It is not competitive and I would say it is not very collectable unless you want to put a 250 or bigger engine in it.
 
If you can pick the whole bike up for a good price Bill, do it ! As Kartwheel said, you will have another roller if you want to change the engine.
 
If you don't want it, I'd like the contact info. Maybe Joe and I will approach Wossner about making a small batch of pistons. The WB 165 piston, was not an "off the shelf" piston. It didn't exist until Walt asked them to make it. As for uncompetitive? Joe Chod did pretty well on his 175XC, racing AHRMA.
 
I have an 82 125 with the Husky Products 175 kit and an 83 175WR, it is outclassed by all Japanese 175s and is not even in the same time zone as the KDX and IT 200s. I love both of my 175s but the truth is they are not competitive.
 
One of son friends told us he had a 125 and it was a dog. Look at the size of the frame, the frame can hold a 500cc engine it's over engineered. His Honda was so much better. If it runs I can putt on it?
 
I have an 82 125 with the Husky Products 175 kit and an 83 175WR, it is outclassed by all Japanese 175s and is not even in the same time zone as the KDX and IT 200s. I love both of my 175s but the truth is they are not competitive.
You have more experience with them, than I do. I rode Joe's and I liked it.
 
One of son friends told us he had a 125 and it was a dog. Look at the size of the frame, the frame can hold a 500cc engine it's over engineered. His Honda was so much better. If it runs I can putt on it?

Yes, that is the problem, it would be a decent bike if Husky had designed a 125/175 specific chassis, but putting it in the same frame as the bigger bikes made it severely overweight. It would be fine to play ride, it's smooth and easy to start but what do you do when you need a set of rings or a piston? My first Husky was an 82 125XC so I have a strong sentimental attachment to these bikes but the hard cold truth is they are not very good bikes as pure racers.
 
You have more experience with them, than I do. I rode Joe's and I liked it.

They are not terrible, Mark Hyde did win the 1983 200cc Hare Scrambles National championship on a 175XC, but unfortunately for us we are not Mark Hyde. They are slightly under powered compared to the Japanese bikes and they weigh 20-30lbs more than the Japanese competition. Of course, because it uses the same chassis as the 250-up bikes that means the chassis is excellent in all the ways that any Husky is, but the smaller the displacement the more important horsepower is and it just gives away too much. The lack of parts, not just the pistons, there are no 125/175 rods left either, the one listed by Euro Rods has the correct length and bore dimensions but the journal width is about 1/3rd the Husky rod so they can not be used. Also, the 175 has a special wrist pin, its 15mm but its about 10mm longer than anything available off the shelf right now. All of this stuff combined just makes the bikes not worth putting any money into in spite of how much sentimental attachment I have to them.
 
My wife loves the picture on the HVA homepage, would like to find one for her but apparently there were none sent to Australia. They are a sweet looking thing.
 
Would that have betor instead of ohlin shocks? All in all buying whole bikes is a more wise move at the beginning of collecting. Whether a kdx or ktm 200 is a more wise move you have to decide. I entered that vintage scramble lately and there was another guy riding brand x with a husky sporting a for sale sign. Actually the only two for sale signs I have seen in two events. Wise or not to collect these things obviously some folks don't think so.

As to the woosner making a piston. I suspect it is the same blank as for a yamaha 165 kit. It is pretty standard 55.5 mm stroke on modern 125 two cycle race bikes. I asked Wally about the offset of the pin and the stock one being centered and his answer did nothing to change my opinion as to what was going on.
 
I'm on the fence. But why do people climb mountains it's the challenge to hear it run again. I'm not looking to turn the earth with it. It's parts too if it doesn't workout.
 
It is a unique piston, no other piston will work,and there are no originals left, if you need a piston you will have to get it made.
 
The history goes it was rebuild years ago then the ignition went it's been sitting there ever since. It might run.
 
The crank snout is the same size as the primary kick engines so if you have an ignition from a 430 or a primary (82+) kick 250 it will fit. You could swap one on just to see if it runs.
 
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