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 The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.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

TE-511 Notchy On Center

P

proeasy

Husqvarna
AA Class
My 2014 TE-511 with about 1,000 miles on it is very notchy when steering straight a head almost as there is a Detent on center, rather unnerving in that the handlebars want to stay in the that position and takes what I would call a non linear effort to get the bike off center, then it steers normally. Have never impacted the front end

Any suggestions

Paul
 
proeasy said:
My 2014 TE-511 with about 1,000 miles on it is very notchy when steering straight a head almost as there is a Detent on center, rather unnerving in that the handlebars want to stay in the that position and takes what I would call a non linear effort to get the bike off center, then it steers normally. Have never impacted the front end

Any suggestions

Paul
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First try lubing and adjusting the steering head bearings.

insane 30 min shortcut:
raise the front end about 2 inches off the ground. remove the handlebars (turn the mounts outward and let the bars rest there so you don't hafta take any cables etc off. loosen upper fork clamp bolts. take the steering nut (30mm or 32mm) & stem nut (punch or spanner) off (put your foot under the wheel... it's gonna drop down). move the upper triple clamp a little forward. take the upper bearing and seal out. clean with wd-40 and test the rollers. same with the outer race too. The lower bearing comes down with the forks IIRC but maybe not (it's been a while for me). hit the bearing with wd-40 (use a lot... you're gonna be surprised at the amount of junk that comes out). do the same test, including feeling the outer races for anything abnormal. pack with grease- a lot in the rollers, and a shitload everywhere else (it's a barrier for dirt/grime/water). use a good, clean axle grease- doesn't really matter which in this low-rotational application. oh yeah- clean & lube the seals too

I hate to say this but- assemble in reverse. use your toe/foot to lift the wheel while you install the stem through the upper triple clamp and get the nut on it. slightly over-tighten the stem nut (feel for resistance while turning the handlebars; also google the "fall away" test) and then back it off slightly. torque down the steering nut. take the handle bars off the reversed clamps, take the clamps off and install the handlebars.

don't kink the throttle cables or hose lines while doing this. don't pressure wash.

you're done. if i left anything out, the solution will be reasonably obvious.

good luck.

ps- if you're in a big hurry: spray a light solvent (wd-40 would be better) in both bearings, wait a few seconds and then turn the bars lock-to-lock a few times. you're redistributing the old grease. notchy bearings affect the handling- seriously affect the handling.




here's something I wrote (~20 years ago) but I didn't think of it until I wrote the above:

Back in the day, I knew “someone” whose steering was soooo notchy, it affected the handling of his bike greatly. We quickly put the bike on a stand, pulled back the lower bearing seal enough to get a spray tube in and proceeded to spray WD-40 in every place we could around the seal. After holding the seal lip open to let the WD-40 drain, I sprayed some lithium grease in it and turned the handlebars back and forth until the solvents evaporated (these solvents probably redistributed the old grease, too). It worked perfectly and BTW, this whole operation probably took less than 5mins. Then this "someone" grew up to be an aerospace and software engineer, got a couple of divorces, dropped out of high tech and went to low tech, and I still don't lube my, er, I mean "his" front end the recommended way (sheesh). Will I never learn?

(segue) Here's a quick cheat: every year or three (or if your steering is "notchy" and you dread dealing with the bottom steering stem bearing) rinse your stem bearings out and re-grease. It's pretty easy: set your bike on a stand with the front wheel just off the ground. Remove the handlebars (and put'em in the reinstalled upside-down clamps so you don't hafta disconnect any brake lines or cables) and remove the upper triple clamp. Let the front end gently drop 2-3” down to the ground. The top bearing can be easily removed and cleaned. The bottom bearing is now exposed: take a can of WD-40 with a spout and spray/flush the old grease out. If you wanna eye-opener, catch the residue in a container and look at all the junk in there. Lather, Rinse, Repeat. Use most of the can, you're gonna get a lot of crap out. Now re-grease with your favorite grease. Use lots- even though this bearing doesn't turn much, the grease is acting as a barrier to contaminants. Don't forget the races, too. I'd guess 60% of the trouble/crap will be in the lower bearing- these bearings are exposed and not sealed very well. Put the upper bearing in, pull the front end up- use your foot under the wheel to hold while put the triple clamp on. Button everything up (well okay, that's a broad brush but I can't detail every step). Now pressure wash the neck area with 2000psi 180° water/soap mix- don't forget the electrical connections, too. ok, ok JAFJ- I can't help but to rant once every so often. No wonder I never post.

BTW- grease. You are not supposed to mix grease with different bases (Li vs soap/Na) but in this low rotational application- eh, who cares?. Or follow the next hint and use a high temp automotive grease that's "waterproof" (a-hem... IOW, just about any auto grease). Also, I'm not sure how much heat the oil cooler and frame reservoir add (some, I'm sure. But enough to worry about?) I'm gonna try candle wax someday or unsalted creamy peanut butter just to see. Okay, maybe not... ...but I don't think the type of grease in this application is a big issue.
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