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 The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.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

Sub-frame Bolts

kjclark7

kjclark7

Husqvarna
AA Class
so i was out riding today with a friend and about an hour or so into the ride, i notice my seat popped off the front post while i was riding a fast section standing up.
so i thought that was weird so i pull to the side and try to put it back on. after failing to put it on, i thought my tank lifted up so i tried pushing that down. when i did that, i grabbed the tail section of the bike and it was flapping in the breeze.
after checking all the bolts for the subframe, i notice that 3 out the 4 were either loose or gone. the 2 main ones under the tank were not screwed in at all. luckily one bolt was still sitting there (the other one was gone) so i was able to screw it back in and limp home. i tightened up the one lower bolt and took the road home. also glad i had tools on me during the ride!
once home, i called the ktm/husky dealer near me and he stated that its a common thing and locktite should be used to install the bolts.
so i got some new bolts and blue locktited them in. i also have some spares now just in case.
so how common is this really?
i wonder how long i was riding around with one bolt or maybe they both backed out today?
i definately got lucky today.
 
I put blue Locktite on every bolt that I take out. I recently skipped a bolt, telling myself, "I'll put it on later.", and guess which one backed out after <100 miles on my recent Death Valley ride?
 
I'm going to guess it's pretty common since I had roughly the same thing happen to me (except I just happened to notice while washing my bike). There seems to be a few common themes with these bikes: Lack of attention to detail during assembly (over/under-torqueing, no locktite), incomplete testing of components before releasing to consumers (i.e. fuel injection problems), and less than consumer friendly customer service from the factory. It seems as if they are trying to flood the market with Huskies to get the brand recognized (they're quite a bit cheaper than other brands) without thinking about the reputation they'll be planting in the minds of comsumers. It doesn't really matter if you have tons of bikes out on the trails for people to see if when they ARE seen it's on the side of the trail because they are broken down. Don't get me wrong, I love my TE but if I didn't know how to repaair motorcycles I'd hate the damn thing, sell it, and buy a Japanese bike that I'd be sure had the bugs worked out of it.
 
clear silicone for that bolts and especially clear on the body panel bolts, blue is too strong for that stuff that screws into the tank inserts....
 
i've been using the clear silicone for the body panel bolts and it works great. i don't think it would work with the subframe bolts so i blue locktited them. plus, thats what the service guy for the husky dealer recommended.
 
My 08TE450 did the same thing but I caught it at home as well but lost a couple, 1 up 1 down. I just replaced them with like size from a fastener dealer rather than stock. Put a Husky part number on it and it seems to gain $$$. So I would say it is common on these oversized vibrators.
 
It's happened to me, first thing i do when i get a new Husky is locktite the subframe bolts. I also carry spares.
 
Aaron8 said:
2011 TE310 here. Subframe bolts were loctite-ed from the factory but the front engine mount bolt was loose! :thumbsup:
Click to expand...

That one loosened on me as well. For the life of me I couldn't figure out the rattle that was coming from the from until I noticed it was like spinning as the bike idled. Then I realized thats the bolt that used to hold the charcoal canister that fell off after break in and power up, oops I forgot the lock tight but figured it had the locking nut so no big deal. :busted: In fact I think I still haven't blue tight it. :eek:
 
which bolt are you guys referring to? any chance you can take a pic of the engine bolt that loosens up?
 
just got back from an hour or so ride in the rocks. subframe bolts seems to be holding well. now i have some seapage from around the water pump on the left hand side. it may also be the top of the valve cover cause i see a little oil seaping. all those bolts are tight so i guess the gasket is bad. should that gasket be changed each time the cover is taken off or is it reusable?
 
I think they loosen not so much because of a tourque issue, but maybe due to the subframe being aluminium mating to a (comparably harder/stronger) steel alloy. The bolts can be tight from the factory but due to "fatigue" and softening around the bolt mating area the diameter of the aluminium may shrink very slightly - taking tension off of the bolt allowing it to work loose.
I have been lucky enough to tighten them once and without lock tight and they are holding well.
 
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