• 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 The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.

    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!

85 250WR

B

Bmaco

Husqvarna
Hi Guys:

I'm the original owner of a 250wr. She's been sleeping since about '94 (funny what happens when you have kids) but I'm going to get her ready for a few enduros and turkey runs this year. I figure I need new crank seals, do I have to split the cases to do that? I've never split cases before, is there a gasket I'll need or is it Yamabond? Does anyone have a shop manual for this particular model?

Thanks,

Budhusky.JPG
 
nice to have you on board. keep us posted and nice work taking care of the bike all these years. doesnt look like it will take too much to be back in action.
use the search or even better "advanced search" here, most of the questions you have are here for you.
 
I would rip that engine out, strip the head and barrel off and send it to a good engine shop to be split and resealed. do the main bearings as well and the gbox bearings and seals.

total peace of mind (and warranty). if you want to have a trouble free 5 years of riding ahead, this is the best course of action.

while its in bits get the ports tidied up and match the base gasket to the transfers etc and get it to factory blueprint specs. replace the needle rollers in the kicker and idler as these can fail and do big damage.

check your headstem bearings, the lower ones are usually shot. grease the swingarm, shock pivots and brake pivot shafts

check the inlet manifold for splits and get a new airfilter and your away!

I see a lot of guys get the "old bike out" and get half way round a ride and everything turns to pooh because they have just fired her up and put it on the trailer. the airfilter collapses, the mains seal fails, it seizes cos there is a split mainifold...the list is endless. sometimes the bike goes back in the corner and the fun has gone out of it just cos they failed some basic prep work.

a great ride is when you know the bike is right and your not having to put up with the leprechaun on your shoulder saying "did you check the...."
 
Well said Suprize. Wouldn't a leakdown test if the crank seals are in good shape? The intake manifold is an easy replacement- I'd certainly check it.
 
I would do everything surprize said, except the internal engine stuff. There is absolutely no reason (IMO) to break down a perfectly good engine other than because you just want to. Did you put it away full of water? If not the internal bearings are almost certainly still good. The only seal you have to split the cases to change is the wet side crank seal, all the others can be changed without splitting, but other than the mag side crank seal I would not change those unless they are leaking.
 
Thanks for all the responses! I suppose a leak down test might be the best place to start. It would tell me where those seals are at. I'd be surprised if I had more than 1500 miles on this bike before it was put up. I greased everything when I put it away I just wonder if those seals, at 31 years old, are hard and not sealing but the leak down test would tell me that. The fork seals are shot and I remember at the time we put Kawasaki seals in because there was less stiction with those, I don't remember the part number though!
 
I just bought and installed replacement seals for my 86-40mm forks. Someone posted this list:


They are 39x52x11mm and these are all the Hondas that use it.
  • 1983-1985 CB 650 SC Nighthawk
  • 1983 CX 650 C Custom
  • 1985-1987 VF 700 C Magna
  • 1984-1985 VF 700 F Interceptor
  • 1984-1987 VT 700 C Shadow
  • 1988 VF 750 C Magna
  • 1983-1984 VF 750 F Interceptor
  • 1983 VT 750 C Shadow
  • 1988 VT 800 C Shadow
  • 1981-1982 CB 900 F Super Sport
  • 1983 CB 1000 C Custom
  • 1981-1982 CBX
  • 1983 CB 1100 F Super Sport
  • 1980-1983 GL 1100 Goldwing/Interstate
  • 1982-1983 GL 1100 Aspencade
  • 1985-1986 ATC 250 R
  • 1984-1985 XL 350 R
  • 1983-1987 XL 600 R
  • Apologies for forgetting who posted the list :thinking:
 
I dont know if I posted that list or not but those are the seals I use. They have more stiction than a 40mm ID seal when they first go on but the will last longer before they start leaking.
 
With all the used two strokes I had in the past that crank seal in the oil always bit me sooner or later. Upfront I do crank bearings, both crank seals, bore it, new piston, seals and gaskets. Do it once and forget about it.

Think about this I'm in the trails on my '78 390cr at first she's ripping, then I killed every flying bug for a square Mile. The wet crank seal on the tranny side went south. Better to buy a bike and go through the engine. Luckily I was at the beginning of the trails.

Remember to pre lube your seals and bearings during assembly.
 
Ok a '85 Husqvarna 250wr dual Olin rear shocks liquid cooled? Was '86 the first year for the rear single shock?
 
Bigbill said:
With all the used two strokes I had in the past that crank seal in the oil always bit me sooner or later. Upfront I do crank bearings, both crank seals, bore it, new piston, seals and gaskets. Do it once and forget about it.

Think about this I'm in the trails on my '78 390cr at first she's ripping, then I killed every flying bug for a square Mile. The wet crank seal on the tranny side went south. Better to buy a bike and go through the engine. Luckily I was at the beginning of the trails.
Click to expand...

And the counter to that argument is me, I have over 30 vintage motorcycles, most of them with completely original bottom ends including seals and bearings. In 12 years of vintage racing which totals several hundred one hour hare scambles and who knows how many MX motos, I have had exactly one DNF and that was on an 84 KTM 125 that, ironically, I had completely rebuilt top to bottom.

Anyone who wants to waste their money rebuilding a perfectly good engine should do so, but dont make it sound like it is a necessary thing to do just because you do it.
 
justintendo said:
depends on year. many of the earlier forks there was room for 2 seals on each. the later forks that held their seals in with a clip use 1 thicker seal.
Click to expand...

The original seals are something like 40x52x6mm and the ones I use are 39x52x11 so only one of them fits in the space the two stacked original seals fit.

Bigbill said:
Ok a '85 Husqvarna 250wr dual Olin rear shocks liquid cooled? Was '86 the first year for the rear single shock?
Click to expand...

Just like 84 when Husky sold leftover air cooled 83s as 84s until the LC was introduced, they sold leftover 84 twin shocks for the first half of 85 and introduced the single shock mid 85.
 
The second half of 85 they were labeled wrx also. If you decide to do a leak down test make sure not to go to high on the pressure , I can't remember off the top of my head what to test at but its not very much or you can do damage to the seal.
 
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