• 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.

    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 The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.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!

Thinking about selling my 84 250WR...

J

jimspac

Husqvarna
Pro Class
I plan to finish up the 84 250WR in the next 2 months . I have painted the frame and fenders and will be repairing the original side covers. They will be painted with plastic paint , same as the fenders and airbox. The engine will be fresh rebuilt with 2nd over piston, new crank seals and a clutch mod I am performing that will make setting the spring bolts simple and fast. I am replacing the seat cover with an original replica from a source I have. I will be wiring the bike to have the ability to receive a CT title.

What can I expect for resale on this being a very well maintained presentable rider and street legal?
 
Right now on www.nadaguides.com value for excellent condition is $1875 for the 1984. For the 1983 250WR. the excellent condition value is $3900+. The thing is the 1984 will achieve the higher value next year or two at the most. I only am looking to sell it this year because now that I am 58 years old, shops do not seem to want to hire me. Other than my age, the other drawback I have is not having a BSME on my degree. I have done very well with my ASME but now I am told I have no degree at all. So I am trying to carefully selloff some of my toys.I know that ruwfo sold a 1984 250WR for $2500 a few years ago so I feel that would be a fair price for street legal and excellent condition.
 
start high as if the bike is in good condit, someone wanting a solid bike will pay for it. mate sold a wr 400 84 for 4500 in aus recently but had he shined it, he could have got lots more. (im kicking myself as i should have bought it as all it needs is a rattle can resto, it was mech perf, just looked rough.) could have spent 500 on powdercoat, nickel plating bolts and some exhaust paint and flipped it for 1.5 - 2k more
 
It will be better than new mechanicaly as I will be making spacers to make the clutch spring settings consistent easily and also have it setup with some nice tricks I have picked up from here over the years
 
I do not think NADA guides for vintage dirt bikes are all that accurate because of the low sample size, and the vast condition differences that the average NADA list compiler would not be aware of. Prices that stuff SOLD for on ebay, not listed, but actual sold prices, would be more accurate.

From what I have seen in the vintage scene around New England for the past several years, $3K seems to be top dollar for any dirt bike, even if there was a legitimate restoration, with most of the stuff being the $1,500 range. You may get lucky with the uninformed, "i had that bike as a kid" buyer. Concours quality, or Dick Burleson's ISDE bike might be a different story, but then you are not talking a craigslist sale, you are listing that in a pro auction...and paying a high commission to the auctioneer.

For two years I tried to sell a restored but MINT, and I mean MINT Honda MR-250. All the "published" info said it was $2,500. Informed vintage guys said it should sell for at least $1,200. Over the course of about 18 months I listed it for sale on craigs and two vintage sites, starting at $2,200. It finally sold to a local guy for $800. Husky is way more desirable than an MR-250 heavy turd, but you get the point. Sadly, I think it is the case that these bikes are treasures to us, but like many collectibles they are worth far less than what we think they are when you actually try to get a paying customer to come over and buy it.

Better than new mechanicals are worth it, but personally I would not pay extra for a bike that had painted plastics. For the time you likely will put into prepping and painting plastic, I would sell as is and note that replacement plastics are readily available.
 
The NADA guides are accurate as they also review auction results. In case you have not seen what Gary has been getting for the 82 430CRs he has sold, NADA was spot on. Most of you in here seem to feel Husqvarnas are only worth what you are willing to pay for them. KTM has brought a lot of attention to the last years of Husqvarna true ownership and that is what is driving these prices you feel are unrealistic. There is also someone on this forum that has been hoarding new Husqvarna fuel tanks since the 70's and now selling them for $2000 each.

I had a Honda MR 250 for 3 years and enjoyed it until the point that as I developed into a better rider, it failed me by dumping me on the ground more often. A trait I never had on the 78 390 Auto unless I did something stupid. And that happened just once. The MR250 was a one year wonder that faded so fast I got mine as a leftover in 1977 for $749 from Popoli Honda. I recently likely found my MR250 in the lot behind Hogan's Cycle in Agawam MA. I had heard from someone I worked with that the friend I sold it to kept it until 2004 appr then traded it in to Hogan on an Eaton quad.
 
I would have to say a normal everday buyer without Husqvarna passion. Well you may be seeing the $3200 to $3500. These bike fans who want a bike are comparing to Japanese or other bikes. A true Husqvarna fan who desires a Husqvarna will pay more. First many who have experiance with building out/ restoring a husky will find out it truely is more expensive for them or anyone else to restore one. Only by oneself can anyone restore a bike fully restored ( not of show but for riding and racing fun ). Now i build for passion, and the bikes I a building now comes mostly from parts I have accumlated for years. I can only build my bikes now at these costs based on past experiance. It getting harder and harder to complete or finish, the cores bikes and parts are not out there. Basically it s a great market for Husky today. My market has been folks mostly on referrel.
 
Gary

If you help restoring the rear engine mount, I now have unfettered access to a vocational school so I can now work on my science projects until I make enough money to buy a CNC Mill and CNC Turning center in the programming school I am setting up in my barn. I current have 3 case sets to work on. A 82 250WR case set the rear was drilled and reamed to Ø.747 for a 14mm ID sleeve for an application I can not bring myself to mention anymore and the 86 400WR case set that was drilled and reamed to Ø.872. Lastly I have a 1987 430WR case set that the PO didn't see the right rear bush hole was egged, because he did not include the bushing when he shipped the cases and cylinder and piston.

So if you want to try my idea send me a case set and I will give you a great price on installation. PM me if interested
 
There are two husky buying populations...past owners and husky nuts all wanting to still pay the "good old prices"of 10 years ago and the other population is older "other brand" riders who want the husky magic they couldnt afford back in the day.
 
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