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 The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.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

Valves check

H

henson802

Husqvarna
AA Class
If Valves are out of spec - will there be gradual symptoms - the further from spec the harder bike starts / worst it runs??

Or will you not realize it until it's too late - hence why the manual says to check after so many miles...

I'm not mechanically inclined so it's difficult for me to check. I was told rejetting carbs is easy and well - that took me more time and headaches then I'd like to share!

So will there be gradual symptoms of the bike that the Valves are gradually getting out of spec and hence need to be shimmed - or will it be too late before you notice the symptoms? Thanks
 
I haven't had any issues yet with my 449, still running as good as new with almost 1000 woods miles on it and never even checked the valves yet.
I do know that my KTM 400 gets hard to start so I know it's time to adjust the valves on it. No other issues though, just hard starting. As soon as adjusted it will fire right up easily.
 
henson802 said:
If Valves are out of spec - will there be gradual symptoms - the further from spec the harder bike starts / worst it runs??

Or will you not realize it until it's too late - hence why the manual says to check after so many miles...

I'm not mechanically inclined so it's difficult for me to check. I was told rejetting carbs is easy and well - that took me more time and headaches then I'd like to share!

So will there be gradual symptoms of the bike that the Valves are gradually getting out of spec and hence need to be shimmed - or will it be too late before you notice the symptoms? Thanks
Click to expand...

You will likely start to experience symptoms. If the intake valves start to tighten, then the bike will become hard to start. I'm not sure which model you have, but if you have an earlier TC/TXC/TE or an X-Lite, valve clearance checks are really easy. All you have to do is take the top cover off, put the bike at top dead center and use a feeler gauge to figure out what the clearance is. Then you go from there to determine whether you need to change the shims or not. Which bike do you have? There are a few "how tos" on this site.
 
Phoenix said:
You will likely start to experience symptoms. If the intake valves start to tighten, then the bike will become hard to start. I'm not sure which model you have, but if you have an earlier TC/TXC/TE or an X-Lite, valve clearance checks are really easy. All you have to do is take the top cover off, put the bike at top dead center and use a feeler gauge to figure out what the clearance is. Then you go from there to determine whether you need to change the shims or not. Which bike do you have? There are a few "how tos" on this site.
Click to expand...

Well that's basically what people told me when rejetting a carb, and while it's easy if you know what you are doing and have the tools.. not so much if you aren't really familiar with the inner workings of bikes. I seen some pics on checking valves and it looks like a lot of narrow , hard to reach areas with feeler gauge slipping in here out there :censored: between this crack up that crack through that ... all to measure what, an 1/8 of an inch or something??

I know how to change oil and air filter but that's about it. I have a 2010 Husqvarna TE 250 - first year model of the X-LITE engines. I also have a Yami 450f so... Was hoping I could hear or feel out the bike before having to open er up and do all the checks. A typical 2 hour work on a bike for a normal person is about 6-8 hours of torture for me .. but I suppose you gotta start and learn sometime. And shops will do it but you have to hand over half your bank account... well, not really but around $180 for one bike is something I hope to avoid!

Appreciate the input!
 
My symptom that tipped me off to further investigation was a bike that started easily to.....poorly. Luckily brought it in and found had 0 clearance on 1 and out of spec the other 3. Adjusted and starting like a beauty and sounds like sweet music at all RPM's ;)
 
henson802 said:
Well that's basically what people told me when rejetting a carb, and while it's easy if you know what you are doing and have the tools.. not so much if you aren't really familiar with the inner workings of bikes. I seen some pics on checking valves and it looks like a lot of narrow , hard to reach areas with feeler gauge slipping in here out there :censored: between this crack up that crack through that ... all to measure what, an 1/8 of an inch or something??

I know how to change oil and air filter but that's about it. I have a 2010 Husqvarna TE 250 - first year model of the X-LITE engines. I also have a Yami 450f so... Was hoping I could hear or feel out the bike before having to open er up and do all the checks. A typical 2 hour work on a bike for a normal person is about 6-8 hours of torture for me .. but I suppose you gotta start and learn sometime. And shops will do it but you have to hand over half your bank account... well, not really but around $180 for one bike is something I hope to avoid!

Appreciate the input!
Click to expand...

I hear ya. Unfortunately, my intake valves on my 2010 TXC 250 started to tighten at an ever increasing rate so I became quite adept at checking and changing them. I'm not sure what kind of hours you have on it or what type of riding you do, but the valves on these high strung 250 X-lites bikes do not seem to stay put quite as well as the older bikes (my husband's 2009 450 has yet to require shims with four times as many hours as my 250). If you do decide to dive in, there is little commitment for checking them...you just need a set of feeler gauges (I recommend ones made for motorcycles). You really don't have to even take the tank off if you don't mind working in a tighter space. To find TDC I just turn the bike over with the kick starter to get it close (see the pics in the thread) and then tap the kick starter until the markers line up. Then just start sliding feeler gauges in one at a time until they don't fit anymore (don't force them) and write down the number on the last gauge that slipped in. If they're outside of the spec range (see the thread), then you'll have to make the decision as to whether to do the shims yourself or pony up the money to have them shimmed. If you ever decide to do that part...be sure to get a good torque wrench and mind the torque specs on the rocker cover bolts. Don't ask me how I know that. :rolleyes:

http://www.cafehusky.com/threads/2010-txc-250-valve-adjustment.17407/
 
Phoenix said:
I hear ya. Unfortunately, my intake valves on my 2010 TXC 250 started to tighten at an ever increasing rate so I became quite adept at checking and changing them. I'm not sure what kind of hours you have on it or what type of riding you do, but the valves on these high strung 250 X-lites bikes do not seem to stay put quite as well as the older bikes (my husband's 2009 450 has yet to require shims with four times as many hours as my 250). If you do decide to dive in, there is little commitment for checking them...you just need a set of feeler gauges (I recommend ones made for motorcycles). You really don't have to even take the tank off if you don't mind working in a tighter space. To find TDC I just turn the bike over with the kick starter to get it close (see the pics in the thread) and then tap the kick starter until the markers line up. Then just start sliding feeler gauges in one at a time until they don't fit anymore (don't force them) and write down the number on the last gauge that slipped in. If they're outside of the spec range (see the thread), then you'll have to make the decision as to whether to do the shims yourself or pony up the money to have them shimmed. If you ever decide to do that part...be sure to get a good torque wrench and mind the torque specs on the rocker cover bolts. Don't ask me how I know that. :rolleyes:

http://www.cafehusky.com/threads/2010-txc-250-valve-adjustment.17407/
Click to expand...

Hey thanks, I will start learning and opening my bikes up more when I get time... a friend told me always take pics when you tear anything down..I have put some good wear on the bike, and haven't checked valves.

I really haven't had any issues as far as starting it, fires right up, idles strong and runs fine. I'm kind of assuming valves are fine, hence this thread!

Will valves check be same between TE and TXC models? Or at least getting to them?

Cheers
 
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