• 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 The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.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!

Am I crazy 360 Automatic Barn Rat?

S

ssaulnier

Husqvarna
AA Class
Was the 360 automatic a good bike for trail riding? I already have a 420 AE. How does the older 360 bike compare? It is pretty ratty looking, but the owner claims that it actually ran last year. I have not gone to see it yet. I will most likely be sorry if I do since I will have another Husky to fix. What should I do?

Thanks, Steve
 
Well, you should know based on your other post about your 420AE that auto transmission parts are hard to find and only getting more scarce. If your intending for it to be a regular use bike forget it IMHO.
 
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I have too many projects already and you are correct about parts being hard to find. I'll pass on this one.
 
It is my opinion that winter conditions but not real deep snow is where tha automatic bikes are best. With the auto clutches you can get and install in modern bikes the auto shifting feature might be the only advantage over that. Trail riding, well if you have a lot of quads, four wheelers, atv's or whatever you call them around you that have loud exhausts I suppose bikes generally in this section would fit in ok. Whther it is the bike itself or the mental attitude it puts you in, my crash and limp around for a week or more was significantly higher per tankful of gasoline on the two automatics I put significant amounts of gasoline into than the standard shift ones of this section.

fran
 
ssaulnier said:
Was the 360 automatic a good bike for trail riding? I already have a 420 AE. How does the older 360 bike compare? It is pretty ratty looking, but the owner claims that it actually ran last year. I have not gone to see it yet. I will most likely be sorry if I do since I will have another Husky to fix. What should I do?

Thanks, Steve
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Hi Steve, Did you do anything with your 360 automatic project. I have several autos I ride on a regular basis except in the middle of the winter. Two of them are 360's and they are a blast to ride and excellent trail bikes and I can ride them as fast and hard as I like. I have never had any problems with the trans and the parts are not all that hard to find as some people say. I change the trans oil after every third tank full of fuel. I use Pentosin ATF1 in all of my automatics and it works fantastic and have found it works better than the original Husky auto trans fluid. Plus it is also easy to find but is $15.00 a quart. I feel it has been the primary reason I don't have problems with my Husky automatics. If you decide not to do anything with your 360 auto I am always on the hunt for them to add to my collection.

Marty
 
motomwo said:
Hi Steve, Did you do anything with your 360 automatic project. I have several autos I ride on a regular basis except in the middle of the winter. Two of them are 360's and they are a blast to ride and excellent trail bikes and I can ride them as fast and hard as I like. I have never had any problems with the trans and the parts are not all that hard to find as some people say. I change the trans oil after every third tank full of fuel. I use Pentosin ATF1 in all of my automatics and it works fantastic and have found it works better than the original Husky auto trans fluid. Plus it is also easy to find but is $15.00 a quart. I feel it has been the primary reason I don't have problems with my Husky automatics. If you decide not to do anything with your 360 auto I am always on the hunt for them to add to my collection.

Marty
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Hi Marty, Just started working on an '87 auto I picked up. I was previously advised to use the Ohlins shock oil on the trans and found a local source for it. I'm not familiar with the Pentosin product, but am curious as to how long you've been using it?
Thanks, Lamar
 
VirgilHilts said:
Hi Marty, Just started working on an '87 auto I picked up. I was previously advised to use the Ohlins shock oil on the trans and found a local source for it. I'm not familiar with the Pentosin product, but am curious as to how long you've been using it?
Thanks, Lamar
Click to expand...

Hi Lamar, I was looking through some old automatic threads and just noticed your question. Maybe you are watching this thread? Any way I have been using the Pentosin for about three years, this is the third season I have used it. Still with great results. I have found that I can go through three tanks of fuel before needing to change the oil and even then it could probably be used long but I have not tried. I have several autos with no problems with the tranmissions! Knock on wood :thumbsup:.
My primary riders are 81 420 AE 82 420AXC 77 360 auto and 76 360 auto. I have others restored autos but haven't ridden much.
 
The 360 Auto as I remember was 3 speed. The 1978 390 Auto I has was low hours but bad 2nd gear when I bought it from a neighbor in 1981. Back then I had a local Husqvarna/KTM dealer and parts were plentiful back then. The main source I have I am not sure if he has sold out yet was Joe Morel in North Attleboro , MA. He is retired and winters in FL. He was the largest Husqvarna dealer in New England and specialized in Auto of all years
 
jimspac said:
The 360 Auto as I remember was 3 speed. The 1978 390 Auto I has was low hours but bad 2nd gear when I bought it from a neighbor in 1981. Back then I had a local Husqvarna/KTM dealer and parts were plentiful back then. The main source I have I am not sure if he has sold out yet was Joe Morel in North Attleboro , MA. He is retired and winters in FL. He was the largest Husqvarna dealer in New England and specialized in Auto of all years
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Can you tell me how to get in touch with Joe Morel just in case I need some auto parts? The 360,390 and 420 were all 4 speed autos. They went to 3 speed autos in the water cooled 430's and the 84 500AE (air cooled). Do you still have any automatics? I have rode many different models of Huskys and the automatics are always the the most fun to ride.
 
I have not had an automatic since parting with the 390 in 1984 . I dealt with them a couple times and had to work with his daughter Tina. What she does not know she asks her mother or father. This is the last contact number I had for them (508) 695-2061
 
jimspac said:
I have not had an automatic since parting with the 390 in 1984 . I dealt with them a couple times and had to work with his daughter Tina. What she does not know she asks her mother or father. This is the last contact number I had for them (508) 695-2061
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Thank youvery much for the info!
Marty
 
You are welcome. I enjoyed my Auto to a large extent but down hills after water crossings made me wish I had the 390WR instead. If it had disc brakes I would have loved it totally. I do have to say I did my best riding ever on it seeing I did not ride dirt again for 23 years after parting with it
 
Hello, I have owned a 1978 husky 390 automatic for some years now. I'm having a problem finding a Sprague bearing. Can anyone help me out. Thanks John
 
Michel Dufayard said:
Marty
How much do you pay them ?
Michel
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It has been about a year since I had to purchase some but at that time the smallest freewheel bearing that goes in the 1st gear clutch hub in the 360/390 was $95.00 and they go up in price progressively for the larger ones. I don't remember exactly but seams like they were around $150.00-$170.00 each.
 
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