• 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.

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    Thanks for your patience and support!

New Member With A 1985 Husqvarna Xc500

Dave400blue

Husqvarna
hello everyone

I am Dave and I've just joined the cafe husky community and have just purchased a 1985 xc500 my 2nd husky after a 35yr gap!!

I have a quick question , the bike was bought here in the uk but was shipped in from the US and was from califonia as I still have the licence / registration with a code and a year date of 2015, anyways the question I have is that it has some sort of chain guide / slack adjuster that I have not seen before , some of you guys might know what it is straight away but here in the uk I am drawing a blank, I have attached some photos of the chain guide / slack adjuster and hopefully some of you might be able to tell me what it is an even better might know the bike and tell me a bit about its history

thank you in advance

Dave
 

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it looks like someone custom made one, due to bad luck with the wear of the originals, which were soft
congrats on a cool find, and welcome aboard
 
Thank you for the reply guys

Regarding the chain guide / slack adjuster it's not a known part then from the US? I will take some more photos of it when I start taking it down to grease up the swing arm and check bearings and bushes etc.it looks well made with a small sprocket mounted on the top of the swingarm and a steel roller on the bottom that runs on the chain rollers between the chain side plates.
Regarding the bike it's pretty straight , plastics were sun faded and the large tank yellowed which is why I mounted a smaller 250 tank on it and bought some new graphics, the bike seems to run fine but I am going to go through the carb jetting to make sure everything is set up correctly , I need to get another inlet manifold as the one on it is cracked and has had some sort of epoxy sealer put on it which isn't very pretty and a bit brittle , gearing on the bike is 14-52 and here in the U.K. We are more closed course so I don't think that gearing would benefit not having the overall area to use higher gearing.
Would fitting a 13t front help any low end issues as if doesn't appear to rev cleanly off the bottom which may be down to the manifold issue?

As I indicated in my first post this is my 2nd husqvarna, and the first was a 1983cr500 which I had when I was sixteen, the bike was a beach racer and very quick and a lovely machine which I had loads of fun on and if I am honest I didn't fully appreciate how good it was as I was just a kid and was more into YZs and CRs , I wish I had that 83 now and hopefully one day I will get another.

I wil keep you al updated on the progress with this xc500 and I am sure I will be asking loads of questions

Thank you
 
Thank you chisler for finding that and the bike won't be a garage queen I will use it for enduros and Practice days so it will be used as it should be

Thnx

Dave
 
Horst Leitner invented them. It's an AMP link. It reduces the chain's torque on the suspension under drive and allows the suspension to work when on the gas.
He was the inventor responsible for ATK motorcycles, very unique high end bikes.
 
Horst Leitner invented them. It's an AMP link. It reduces the chain's torque on the suspension under drive and allows the suspension to work when on the gas.
He was the inventor responsible for ATK motorcycles, very unique high end bikes.

this one looks like a knockoff of the one on the ATK, it might be a shop made them, but this looks more like someone made a one off custom
 
Hi WRX / eurofreak/ chisler

So the thinking is that it's a AMP Link....
Well that's answered that question , it would be great if someone knew of the machine in the US but that's a big ask..
All I know is that it came from California but hey that's probably a state bigger than the whole of the UK

Any of you guys know where I can get a good original inlet manifold as the one on it is cracked and also an original (exhaust side of the bike) number panel?

Also what would be a good pipe for this motor?

Thank you

Dave
 
if you do find original plastic for that it will ba as hard as a rock and brittle. DC and Acerbis will get you as close to original a possible. NOST front and rear fenders from Acrebis is what I used on mine.
 
sorry everything is on this side of the pond. you can also try HVA Factory they are in the UK.
 
I bought mine form Phil and they look great! The only problems I had were the right number plate sticks out some and I don't know if the way I have the front headlight/number plate mounted is correct with the rubbers supplied. Chris
 

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