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 The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.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

EZ front end upgrade for older huskys

Motosportz

Motosportz

CH Sponsor
Staff member
Many of you might know this but I was amazed how EZ this was. surfer1100 clued me into a front end sale for my 86 WR400 i desperately wanted to upgrade. THANK YOU. I bought an entire front end off a 99 WR250, zoke 45's, wheel, brakes etc. for $100 of craigslist!!! Anyway Motosportz Mike tells me it will bolt right up. No way I thought but he seems to know everything. Well I mounted it up and WOW, bolts right on, same bearings, stem etc. even the stops woks perfect. Amazing.

So now my front end is not floppy, horribly damped and i have real brakes. I really liked this bike stock but hated the front end and brakes. This mod makes the bike turn WAY better and stop WAY better and feels WAY more planted. Had a few hours to test it and found out 3 buddies with new KTM's can't seem to keep up with a 24yo Husky :D

BTW if you do this mod you really need to run tall bar risers so you can move the forks up a lot on the triples as the stock bike only has a little over 10 inches of travel. I figured this out after a few miles and was amazed how nimble and planted a 24yo bike can be. BTW the motor is a grunting short shifting rocket in the slick stuff. FUN.

Next on the list is the ergonomics, tall flatter seat, custom wide pegs and this machine will be ready to rock.

1078562590_7Gfb4-L.jpg
 
I just did about the same to my 82 250 XC. Went with Late 90's KTM stuff I just didn't want to use up side down Forks. I collected parts for a wile and have my choise of 97' Marzooki 50mm or 98-99 Wp's. Allied Top Clamp. On other advantage is that when You go with more modern Tripple clamps You open the Door to Modern Fat Bars, Bark Busters and Steering dampeners that are bolt on. Same story the front end just bolted on. I had to roll the Throdel to clear the Master Cyl and the Remove the Plastic Pegs in the Frame Bumpers. The Steering Turns a tiny bit less but only cause I don't want to cut off the Steering stops from the frame.
 
Sweet! Glad it worked out so well. Gives the bike a more official look too. No problem on the find, glad to help a husky brother out.
 
With longer forks you might see about the xc rear shock and if the linkage pieces are different. Usually the front wheel comes just about to the fender when bottomed out. I would be rather cautious to suggest anyone get bar risers and move the forks that far in the clamps without some sort of warning. I know for sure about the difference in braking on a swap like that. With the earlier rubber monted handlebar triple clamp the trail is very close to origional on that swap. The clamps on that one more triangular and I suspect you get a change in trail but you seem pleased.

Fran
 
I just did a simple bolt on swap, installing a set of 1984 40mm WR forks onto a 1979 CR390. With the CR tank there's not even an issue with the fork stops. A larger OR tank may require some attention to the fork stops though.
The WR forks are the same length as the 79 CR, forks so the bike keeps the same height balance front to rear as the 35mm's.
I'm thinking we'll never notice a difference in 10.8" travel vs 11.8 with the CR forks.
We won't get to ride it for a while, but it should be a big improvement over the long wimpy 35mm's.
 
So i have two rides on this beast since the front end swap. One was semi slick clay based terrain. Yesterday was a very technical area, in the rain, I mean nasty rain all day. This bike works WAY better than it should. Turns great, stops great etc. The kicker is the narrow bars (running mini high bars), crazy tight turning radius and low bike equal EZ to do nasty down hill switchbacks and off caber stuff. I am as fast on this bike as any. The motor other than somewhat excessive vibrations is a joy to use in the very slick stuff as you can short shift it and get traction anywhere. It also has more top end than i first thought. I really liked the motor right away and it is and main reason i spent the time to upgrade the front end. I'm glad i did, this bike will get ridden a good amount. It also makes me realize for the type of riding i do a low bike is kinda cool. I'm really having fun on this bike. My buddy with the 07 WR250 rode it and concurs, that bike works WAY better than it should and he loved it too. Proclaimed it the ultimate lazy guy bike as you can put it in third and ride all day never touching the clutch. It is nearly impossible to stall. Hill climbs are silly EZ, tons of bottom end power and a low long bike just goes up the hill. Amazing.
 
I went the KTM route for my front end but I guess a later Husky is better... it just depends what is around at the time. It seems as though you got a great deal though.

You are right that it does turn and stop better.

Below is a picture of mine along side an early works machine. You can notice a slightly different seat line... That might be the profile you are after.

Stu
 

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Husky37;130347 said:
I went the KTM route for my front end but I guess a later Husky is better... it just depends what is around at the time. It seems as though you got a great deal though.

You are right that it does turn and stop better.

Below is a picture of mine along side an early works machine. You can notice a slightly different seat line... That might be the profile you are after.

Stu
Click to expand...

Thats a real good looking bike. :thumbsup:
 
More simple but VERY rewarding updates to the old beast. Been riding this bike a lot. Works great in the slop. That said the stock bent and sagging footpegs about killed me several times. It wants to spit you off when you try to stand, not good. Thought about several methods and then out of desperation going for a ride the next day and wanting to take "the beast" I bent some flat stock steel in a U shape, welded it to the stock pegs regardless of their saggy position (put the new ones flat obviously), and then took the grinder to them to make teeth. Was the best half hour I ever spent on a bike mod. Makes the bike 100% Ezer to stand and control the beast. I also did the brake peddle too as I had to contort my foot inwards to get to it and it was to low. Now the bike is a joy to sand on, the pegs are huge and grippy and the brake is EZ to use. Huge improvement in control and comfort.

You can see saggy bent back footepeg inside the ones I welded up...

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old iron rocks....

why do you ride in leaves covered w/ poo? :confused:

nice scoot....hate you some more! :p
 
pvduke;131268 said:
why do you ride in leaves covered w/ poo? :confused:

nice scoot....hate you some more! :p
Click to expand...

Clay grease on glass covered in leaf snot is fun to ride in. The beast loves it. Those trails take you to these trails...

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:eek:

missin' the lil long-legs WRK. and the collville ntl. forrest.

gotta stop looking at your pics...they are totally ruining riding for me.

*whimper*
 
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