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 The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.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

Tc 450 Kick It To Death

Witnessed a bloke crack the engine casing (around the kick starter) with the very first kick of a new 2010 TC450. He was not impressed being an under statement. Not an issue starting my '10 TE450, once you've got an electric leg you never go back!
 
Kreza said:
Witnessed a bloke crack the engine casing (around the kick starter) with the very first kick of a new 2010 TC450. He was not impressed being an under statement. Not an issue starting my '10 TE450, once you've got an electric leg you never go back!
Click to expand...

for real... first kick? that would put a dampener on riding a new bike :(
 
I had that happen on an XR400 94-95 in the middle of an enduro.When I took it apart to fix it you could see where they had heat treated the shaft, and it snapped off right at the line where the heat tempering line stopped.I gave it to my dealer and he gave it to Honda and they replaced it and seals gaskits ect. as a defective part.Have you taken it back to your dealer? Oh and ditto on the valve clearances,one of the first signs they are going out of tolerances, and then jetting.
 
Occasionally I will say things like 'I've never seen that problem before' - this is not one of those times... sadly. I've seen the issue discussed several times before.
 
Not saying this is the case but, I've seen a lot of snapped parts (legs included) from kicking when the throttle is opened (I keep my hand on the master area). Might go w/o saying but, never touch the gas when kicking a 4T, sometimes it's accidental- happens to me then it's *POP!* and the ol leg hits the bar (or ya kiss the front fender like I did on that XR600, God I hate those bikes).

(Along with afore mentioned, valves are FIRST thing I check on a hard starter, then spark and timing, jetting usually aint it for starting in most cases unless something is clogged or missing...)
Here's what I've learned over the years on 4T's FWIW:

Cold: gas on, bowl fills, choke on, twist grip a few times (if AP equipped), kick w/ gas closed.
High idle will make it hard to light.
Pop/stall/hot motor: use the HS button.
Dump it/flood: turn off gas, wait a sec, use the HS button. If still no light in 5 kicks- hold kill button, crack gas slowly all the way open with HS button/comp release on, leg it a few times medium speed, let go of everything on handle bar, w/ hot start still on- give it a boot or two. Should fire right up. IF ya do flood it get a new plug soon.

With these "drills" I've found I can usually start any 4T (like when a buddy's e-start thumper's battery dies and the "now what?!" look comes on 30 miles from the truck).
 
Hate to say this but the first 2010 TC450 we got had this problem along with many transmission issues, Husky stepped up an warrantied the whole bike, got a new bike and trans had no problems but lost another kick shaft and case while demoing the bike, lost the sale and alot of potential sales, as this happened in front a lot of riders on a demo day:thumbsdown:. It did not portray Huskies in a good light.
 
Have to add that a mate with an '06 WR450 snapped his kick shaft off as well. Perhaps its starting technique??????
 
Husky got a black eye over it. They did have issues. So has every one else darn near.

I had a 440 Macio that I finally gave up on and just push started, even with a comp release you could not keep a shaft or knuckle on the kicker.

Despite the best efforts of all the factories stuff sometimes don't quite go as planned.

I will say one thing for Husky's, the carbed twin-cam TC's? Easyest starting 4T ever. Auto-decomper = the weight of your foot is all it takes to get it lit. You can use your hand almost. No reason to use enough force to snap something off. They literally almost start themselves.
 
pvduke said:
I will say one thing for Husky's, the carbed twin-cam TC's? Easyest starting 4T ever. Auto-decomper = the weight of your foot is all it takes to get it lit. You can use your hand almost. No reason to use enough force to snap something off. They literally almost start themselves.
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Our last 2 TC450 demos (09 & 10) were like this - as long as you got the piston just past compression they started first kick, hot or cold. I took the 09 to a press test and forgot my boots, so started it first kick in trainers whilst the Yamaha guy kicked for about 10 minutes to start their YZ. You can't kick a four stroke like a two stroke...

Dave
 
Nice.

On my TC I just sit on it and roll the start lever over a couple times and it purrs to life. Starts as easy or easier than my 2T. TDC, BDC, don't matter I just move the lever down and BRRRRRRR...BRAPA! It's nuts! Lit it up last night after sitting two months, started second stroke of the lever...BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR......pretty much just need the weight of my leg, wouldn't even call it a kick....

LMAO @ some kicking stuff for 5 mins. Nothing sucks more than getting exhausted w/ sweaty goggles before you start the ride, been there!
 
Same as above with my TC510, almost start by her self, no need of effort except when i did sink her :( took me about 15-20 kicks, i went for a ride with a body with his CRF250F holy F...... took him sooooooooooooooo long to kick that piece of shyt took longer than i when i sank her, i would have kick it but in the tank, exhaust etc etc instead and burn it down :D
 
I'm somewhat new to the off road lexicon, so let me first get some of the language out of the way before I ask a question.
  • Does "sink" mean to crash? Or flood the cylinder with too much gas?
  • Does "light" mean to start? As in spark "lighting" the fuel? :confused:
Now for the more important stuff:

I read PVDUKE's great tips above, but I'm not sure which tip applies to my problem. I have a 2006 TC450 that starts up on the first kick when cold, and runs like a banshee. I love it until I crash. Which I do often :o Then, it takes me about 20 kicks to start it when hot. If I don't crash, it starts when hot fine, but not as easy as when it is cold. I use the choke when cold (only) and the hot start button when hot.

Also, I'm not sure why everyone is saying how easy it is to kick over, mine isn't too hard, but it isn't easy at all. Are people using the manual compression release each kick?

Thanks!!

kouack said:
Same as above with my TC510, almost start by her self, no need of effort except when i did sink her :( took me about 15-20 kicks, i went for a ride with a body with his CRF250F holy F...... took him sooooooooooooooo long to kick that piece of shyt took longer than i when i sank her, i would have kick it but in the tank, exhaust etc etc instead and burn it down :D
Click to expand...
 
Chi2 said:
I read PVDUKE's great tips above, but I'm not sure which tip applies to my problem. I have a 2006 TC450 that starts up on the first kick when cold, and runs like a banshee. I love it until I crash. Which I do often :o Then, it takes me about 20 kicks to start it when hot.
Also, I'm not sure why everyone is saying how easy it is to kick over, mine isn't too hard, but it isn't easy at all. Are people using the manual compression release each kick?

Thanks!!
Click to expand...

Crash/flooded restart: turn off gas, wait a sec, use the HS button. If still no light in 5 kicks- hold kill button, crack gas slowly all the way open with HS button/comp release on, kick easy a few times medium speed, let go of everything on handle bar, w/ hot start still on- give it a boot or two. Should fire right up. If not repeat.

Auto-decomp should work as designed and it should be pretty easy to kick over, you can tell where TDC is but still, should be pretty easy. W/O the decompressor it'll be REALLY hard to kick over past TDC. Have a shop check the end of your cam etc if you think it's not's working. If you use the manual decompressor it should turn over w/ very little resistance.
 
@ Chie2 Sorry this could be my French side and not using proper wording, sink= i went into deep water and my bike did swallow a lot of water and stalled hope this make sense
 
Chi2 said:
I I have a 2006 TC450 that starts up on the first kick when cold, and runs like a banshee. I love it until I crash. Which I do often :o Then, it takes me about 20 kicks to start it when hot. If I don't crash, it starts when hot fine, but not as easy as when it is cold. I use the choke when cold (only) and the hot start button when hot.
Click to expand...
I am lazy... and have an estart, but:

After falling / crashing I simply hold the bike upright for 90 seconds or so, then the excess fuel in the carb drains out. :)

(sometimes tilting slightly can help speed that time up)
 
The bikes we have all started with ease, but during the demo ride a few riders fell and did not know how to start um back up. Regardless I have never had another bike ever break a kick shaft, never mind 2. The culprit seems to be the shaft bushing has poor lubrication qualities, and heats up the shaft, or just poor heat treating on the shaft.
 
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