• 4 Stroke Husqvarna Motorcycles Made In Italy - About 1989 to 2014
    TE = 4st Enduro & TC = 4st Cross

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 The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.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

new bike break in time, suspension and metal oil filter questions

ARH

Husqvarna
AA Class
My new Husky (2012 te250) is here at last! It is fresh out of crate, I don't ever think I've seen an odometer reading "0" before. So far so good, it seems to be the perfect little bike, almost anyway. I am riding it carefully for the break in, How long or how many miles is that? I get a different answer from everyone I talk to. The manual says two hours, but that seems a little short? I had some stalling problems at first, but was told to expect this, it seems to be getting much better already. The suspension also seems stiff, I was told this needs time to break in too, but I weigh 125 and am only getting about 2 1/2 inches of sag when I sit on it. Will I need a new spring? So far I want to add a 50 tooth sprocket, bark busters and power up kit to my list of future modifications. I'm not crazy about the graphics either, the stickers are in the plastic so I can't get them off and I'm still looking for a way to change the black part of the tank the shows in the triangular area to silver (like the classic Husky). I'm also wondering if those reusable metal oil filters are ok to use, they seem like a good idea (save money, reduce waste) but I'm not sure. Overall, I am really happy with the bike, The height is perfect and it is so light, agile and easy to turn, I love the feel of the hydraulic clutch. I can't wait to see what this bike can do.
 
You need to have the bike sprung for your weight. It comes sprung for about a 180lb rider.

It'll be tight and fussy for about 250 miles. At least that was my experience

There are no stickers. The plastic is made that way. It keeps them from peeling.

Regular filters are like $5-6 (HiFlo) and I would trust them more than a metal filter personally, but that's just a personal feeling, nothing based on evidence or experience.
 
Mine has 300 miles and is feeling a little looser every outing. After the 3 min warmup it idles at 1850 or so. The advice I got to break in for 500-600 miles makes sense when you consider the bike as a whole and that the quart of oil is doing triple duty, engine, clutch, and trans, same guy said no to stainless filter.
 
Slow break in is best IMO and everyone will give you a different story/opinion as like oil, gas, etc. I have done the slow method with all of my new bikes and I think they love me for it. I no like the metal filters either it has 2 all ready no need for a third. The paper ones are cheap when you by a grip. Call your local Moto shop and ask if they give a discount on 5/10/15 or so on. They are only 4-6 bucks depending on the shop and quantity where I am.
 
My new Husky (2012 te250) is here at last! It is fresh out of crate, I don't ever think I've seen an odometer reading "0" before. So far so good, it seems to be the perfect little bike, almost anyway. I am riding it carefully for the break in, How long or how many miles is that? I get a different answer from everyone I talk to. The manual says two hours, but that seems a little short? I had some stalling problems at first, but was told to expect this, it seems to be getting much better already. The suspension also seems stiff, I was told this needs time to break in too, but I weigh 125 and am only getting about 2 1/2 inches of sag when I sit on it. Will I need a new spring? So far I want to add a 50 tooth sprocket, bark busters and power up kit to my list of future modifications. I'm not crazy about the graphics either, the stickers are in the plastic so I can't get them off and I'm still looking for a way to change the black part of the tank the shows in the triangular area to silver (like the classic Husky). I'm also wondering if those reusable metal oil filters are ok to use, they seem like a good idea (save money, reduce waste) but I'm not sure. Overall, I am really happy with the bike, The height is perfect and it is so light, agile and easy to turn, I love the feel of the hydraulic clutch. I can't wait to see what this bike can do.

You have a great bike ... It'll be a very good dirt \ woods \ racing bike (except of the lights maybe) ... Not too fast on the hardtop though, ESP with a 50T rear sprocket and the seat might be a little hard on longer rides ..

You might wanna sell the tank shrouds and buy some 08-09 yr shrouds that do not have the built-in stuff and add your own decals ... I'm not 100% sure they will fit but they might ...

If the SS filters did not work, the entire world would know due to engine failures ... My 08 TXC250 engine lasted ~800hrs or so with one .... (My 08 TXC250 is perfect also ... )

Yep the hydro clutch is very good after you get used to the feel ... Almost every pull will feel exactly the same for many, many rides ... You'll have to bleed it eventually, but overall, it is the way to go ...

The suspension will soften up some, but you might have to change springs to get the sag correct ... You can always play with the clickers and oil amount in the forks but if the sag is way off, you'll need to fix that issue to get the suspension to perform correctly ...

Once you start with tuning the EFI, this is the place to be ... These guys have got all the angles covered on tuning these bikes ...

Happy riding and post some pics sometimes or a ride report ...
 
My new Husky (2012 te250) is here at last! It is fresh out of crate, I don't ever think I've seen an odometer reading "0" before. So far so good, it seems to be the perfect little bike, almost anyway. I am riding it carefully for the break in, How long or how many miles is that? I get a different answer from everyone I talk to. The manual says two hours, but that seems a little short? I had some stalling problems at first, but was told to expect this, it seems to be getting much better already. The suspension also seems stiff, I was told this needs time to break in too, but I weigh 125 and am only getting about 2 1/2 inches of sag when I sit on it. Will I need a new spring? So far I want to add a 50 tooth sprocket, bark busters and power up kit to my list of future modifications. I'm not crazy about the graphics either, the stickers are in the plastic so I can't get them off and I'm still looking for a way to change the black part of the tank the shows in the triangular area to silver (like the classic Husky). I'm also wondering if those reusable metal oil filters are ok to use, they seem like a good idea (save money, reduce waste) but I'm not sure. Overall, I am really happy with the bike, The height is perfect and it is so light, agile and easy to turn, I love the feel of the hydraulic clutch. I can't wait to see what this bike can do.
The only thing that needs breaking in on the motor is to seat the rings.....That's all done in the first 20 minutes or so. Ride it easy, your rings will never fully seat. Warm it up & Ride it like you stole it for 20 minutes & your rings can seat nicely giving you a more powerful motor that lasts longer.
The suspension will take a lot longer - ie. 5-10 hours or more.
 
I think running the bike in is important, but don’t nurse it everywhere you go, give the throttle a blip here and there and let it rev up, just don’t run at 12500rpm too much for a while!
We are in a warmer climate but I still let my bike "warm up" before riding. It’s easy to get in the habit if you have all of your gear on, bar helmet and gloves. I start the bike and lube the chain, leave it running while gloves and helmet go on then set off.
I also used semi-synthetic oil for the first 1000km (and changed it 3 times = 4 sets of oil). Since then I have used only fully synthetic oil and have 5000km (a bit over 3000miles) with little/no obvious engine wear. Did need to adjust valve clearances at 1000km but that was only from crap that got lodged in the seats when the spark plug was (sloppily) checked/changed.


Just in general too: these bikes have high compression motors - use only high quality high octane fuel (the book even says this). My bike has never seen anything but 98 RON fuel.
 
+1 ray-ray. on the SS filters. No adverse effects from using the stock parts. I clean the filters every oil change (every 1000km ). It usually has a small amount of ferrous metal fragments particularly on the sump magnet which is normal.
 
Thanks for all the advice everyone. I just don't want to do anything stupid and damage my new bike, or worry about things I don't have to. I'm sure I'll have to do something about the suspension, I called the dealer and they suggested a place a couple of hours away that specializes in that sort of thing. The same place, "Enduro Engineering" (http://www.enduroeng.com/) has bark busters and other products designed using Husqvarna bikes as their models. I would like to know more about the magnet to catch the metal bits, it sounds like a good idea, how/where do I install one? I have about 2 1/2 hours on the bike so far, taking it easy. I am going to change the rear sprocket right away, the one that came with the bike makes it geared way too high for the twisty trail through the woods I'm riding on, the other trails are all loose sand and I don't want to stress the engine yet. My husband has a 2011 te250 with a 50 tooth sprocket which seems about perfect to me. I don't think he takes it over 55 mph on the pavement, but I really have no need or desire to go any faster than that. I'll post pics when I get it looking good. I also found that I really don't want to fall and scuff it all up, my old bike was kind of beat up already when I got it, so another tip over, another scratch, no big deal. I guess its going to happen, but I think the first one is going to hurt.
 
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