OlderHuskyRider
Husqvarna
Pro Class
Dan's "Living with a 2010 Husky TE510" was a big inspiration for this thread, that and I didn't do anything like this for my last bike, the Blue Beast that I took off-roading with some guys in New Mexico a couple of times, once in October and once in November of 2010.
It was great fun riding the Beast to and from New Mexico, and great fun on the improved roads, but when we got to the deep gravel crossing the Rio Grande, and the steep uphill climbs in loose football rocks, the deep sand washes, and the 60mph washboard roads,....well, it wasn't fun anymore, it was a lot of work and a lot of horrible sounds coming from the Beast. Hence the decision to get the Husky. Why did I get a Husky and not a KTM or something else? I wanted EFI, at least a 450, and LIGHT WEIGHT.! And, I used to race a 250 Husky waaayy back in the early 1970s so it was kind of an emotional decision on some level.
My goal is to be able to ride the bike 700 miles from Austin to New Mexico, change the countershaft sprocket, ride 100-200 tough miles with the best of 'em, then change the CSS again, and ride 700 miles home.
If I can achieve the goal with stuff I have in my garage, that's usually gonna be the way I do it....I'm cheap as hell. I read where people said you needed to build a guard to protect the throttle housing from the kickstarter. Ever since I saw my brother expose his bloody calf muscle trying to kickstart a KTM in the mid-90s, the protection I wanted was FOR ME from the freakin' kickstarter! So I looked in my hose box and got a piece that would slide over the kickstart pedal, it'll protect me when the time comes, and it protects the throttle body a little bit too.
Trying to break this bike in with a bad fuel pump, I'm riding alot of street, staying close to the house and using roads with shoulders so I can pull off when it dies. The top of my left foot was getting sore from upshifts, makin' a whole lot of them with this insanely close-ratio gearbox. I used a Dremel to grind the rear/bottom edge on the square part of the shifter, and then slid a piece of hose over the round part, trimmed it, used a lighter to singe the end a little. Much more comfortable and easier on my boot as well. Also in the pic is the solution to the suicide kickstand, I saw that Dan B had cut the post off his kickstand bolt so I did too.
When I was preping my Blue Beast for duty, I bought a $20 piece of decorative steel for a radiator guard, $20 was a little more than I wanted to pay but what the heck. Anyway, I wanted to get rid of the black plastic guards that came with the Husky, some folks said that they actually hindered cooling air, so I used the leftover deco steel and it turned out pretty good, of course, anything painted black is generally gonna look pretty good to me.
More cheap tricks to come....and some not-so-cheap ones as well.
It was great fun riding the Beast to and from New Mexico, and great fun on the improved roads, but when we got to the deep gravel crossing the Rio Grande, and the steep uphill climbs in loose football rocks, the deep sand washes, and the 60mph washboard roads,....well, it wasn't fun anymore, it was a lot of work and a lot of horrible sounds coming from the Beast. Hence the decision to get the Husky. Why did I get a Husky and not a KTM or something else? I wanted EFI, at least a 450, and LIGHT WEIGHT.! And, I used to race a 250 Husky waaayy back in the early 1970s so it was kind of an emotional decision on some level.
My goal is to be able to ride the bike 700 miles from Austin to New Mexico, change the countershaft sprocket, ride 100-200 tough miles with the best of 'em, then change the CSS again, and ride 700 miles home.
If I can achieve the goal with stuff I have in my garage, that's usually gonna be the way I do it....I'm cheap as hell. I read where people said you needed to build a guard to protect the throttle housing from the kickstarter. Ever since I saw my brother expose his bloody calf muscle trying to kickstart a KTM in the mid-90s, the protection I wanted was FOR ME from the freakin' kickstarter! So I looked in my hose box and got a piece that would slide over the kickstart pedal, it'll protect me when the time comes, and it protects the throttle body a little bit too.
Trying to break this bike in with a bad fuel pump, I'm riding alot of street, staying close to the house and using roads with shoulders so I can pull off when it dies. The top of my left foot was getting sore from upshifts, makin' a whole lot of them with this insanely close-ratio gearbox. I used a Dremel to grind the rear/bottom edge on the square part of the shifter, and then slid a piece of hose over the round part, trimmed it, used a lighter to singe the end a little. Much more comfortable and easier on my boot as well. Also in the pic is the solution to the suicide kickstand, I saw that Dan B had cut the post off his kickstand bolt so I did too.
When I was preping my Blue Beast for duty, I bought a $20 piece of decorative steel for a radiator guard, $20 was a little more than I wanted to pay but what the heck. Anyway, I wanted to get rid of the black plastic guards that came with the Husky, some folks said that they actually hindered cooling air, so I used the leftover deco steel and it turned out pretty good, of course, anything painted black is generally gonna look pretty good to me.
More cheap tricks to come....and some not-so-cheap ones as well.
