• 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.

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Well I couldn't help myself - 1983 500 XC

The brakes will always be a weak point, even when you massage them to the max. Wait until you have to cross a creek and have a downhill after it! Only thing worse is an Auto in this situation. Cunningham was a god! If you're not racing vintage, just put later Husky 40mm disc forks on. I still love to ride my '82 250WR, not quite as smooth and linear as a 430, but still a little tractor! My avatar pic.
 
Norman is correct, the brakes are always going to be a weak spot, the brakes are the biggest advantage a modern bike has over it. As he said, get a pair of 40mm conventional forks off of an '85-'87 XC/CR with the front disc, its really not all that great compared to modern discs but its a massive improvement over the drum and doesnt look out of place like upside down forks.
 
Going to put some new EBC grooved shoes in her and see how that goes. I'd say they are working about 40% right now so if i can get them to be acceptable I'll probably just stick with it. Time will tell.

Norman Foley said:
If you're not racing vintage, just put later Husky 40mm disc forks on.
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I want to leave it drum so I can race some vintage MX if I feel like it and I just might. There is a nice vintage track just up the road from my house. Wish they did vintage enduros around here.
 
As to the 85 to 88 forks and brakes, 85-86 have a floating disc and a caliper with two pistons one on each side. 87-88 have a fixed disc and the piston in the caliper is only on one side. I am pretty sure somewhere along the line the bore of the master cylinder changed. It is very common to make generalizations on this site that don't account for specifics. The diameter of the disc or rotor of the bikes in this section is smaller than what follows in time.

What you have is the double leading shoe. I thought the problem is when your riding buddy stops too fast in front of you or you are reading your route sheet and the guy in front of you brakes to read his while you aren't payint total attention.

I am pretty sure the 85-86 has the drum brake stay attachment on either side and for the 87-88 you have to switch right for left fork to use a drum. I know I had a drum on my 88 for a while.
 
Motosportz said:
Going to put some new EBC grooved shoes in her and see how that goes. I'd say they are working about 40% right now so if i can get them to be acceptable I'll probably just stick with it. Time will tell.



I want to leave it drum so I can race some vintage MX if I feel like it and I just might. There is a nice vintage track just up the road from my house. Wish they did vintage enduros around here.
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Well at least you have twin leading shoe front, instead of my '82 single leading shoe.....
 
Norman Foley said:
Well at least you have twin leading shoe front, instead of my '82 single leading shoe.....
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it actually worked pretty good before I thought it would be smart to sand the glaze off them. New shoes should be acceptable. I had dual leading shoes on my old YZ465, worked pretty good but were scary when sliding backwards on a hill.
 
old school ring-dinger. no radiators to leak! brakes are a beetch. gota stay on top of them. siping the shoes helps some. keeping the drums clean and deglazed really helps. i've fiddled with brake arm lentghs/cam profiles on those to dial in modulation and to keep from smoking them. you'll get it dialed. but brakes are the main thing. they need a lot of attention if theres any wet stuff. just wheelie over the crud and brakes just slow ya down anyways so fooey on them! hehehe baroop brapp mreep mreep!
 
Motosportz said:
Looking for cables, shouldn't a 83 CR500 be the same? Listed as different???
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Where is it listed different. The 1983 xc500 I have came with a different throttle on the handlebar than the gunner gasser type most of the bikes in this section came with. The official parts sheet call for the cr version of that year to be the same. What throttle is on your handlebar? I put the gunner gasser thing on years ago. Maybe the throttle doesn't matter just the 40mm carb gets a longer cable.
 

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I just spent the weekend with a whole lot of young guns on their four fitty's braaaping about everywhere! the first long sandy road I just rounded em all up sitting on the seat with bars at full lock at 120k's , they were blown away! by day two they were all shifting around with bum chafe all trying to get a ride on the "Jason Recliner"

Brakes were difficult but not that big a problem, some steep hills to deal with but as ol mate says you just point it and hang on. it was dusty as hell so no water issues for brakes...really enjoyed it.
 
It was an eye opener for them when we hit a bit of open road and I would leave em behind while they were revin hard an changing gears....

they would hold me until I hit 4th and sayonara baby she would hook up and march away. great stuff. had a couple of young guys keen to get a 430 air cooled after the weekend....
 
Rode the high dez yesterday. Took my 511 but was thinking the xc 500 would have been really fun on some of it. Will take it out there once I get a few more things addressed.
 
Motosportz said:
Rode the high dez yesterday. Took my 511 but was thinking the xc 500 would have been really fun on some of it. Will take it out there once I get a few more things addressed.
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Yea, that thing should love the desert....just remember you cant stop :-) Well, shift down a couple times and that might lock up the rear wheel !!
 
in sand, the drum isn't really an issue, what you miss is just the absolute control a discy gives, soon get you used to haulin the lever and waitin to see what happens... No doubt the sand has form fitted my shoes as they are quite snappy now, plenty of power.

what you will love is the plushness and the seat...

Getting it so you can confidently take it out for an 80 km ride is the key...
 
If You are considering a front Fork swap its really pretty easy. If You look at my Picture this bike has a 97-99 KTM conventional fork set up with its Brembo Brake. There are many Fork options the Suzuki and Yamaha are popular options to. Assuming You want to stay with conventional Forks ( which You don't need to ) just find the latest and newest one you can. The late 90's had some of the best, and the early 2000's brought the up side down and harsh ones until they got them figured out. Since these are just old parts for modern bikes they don't sell for much. Want to race Vintage, sure You can. You can even use the modern forks in vintage right up to the point where you start winning. Once that happens you might get some flak. Keep in mind that a Fork Swap back to Your old ones should only take about an hour, just leave the old set up all together wheel and all. Slip off the master cylinder off the bars so that You don't need to bleed the brake. I'm in Seattle by the way.
 
Kelly, looking forward to your impressions once you get her out and ride her hard (heh heh...)!! I will have to live vicariously through you.
 
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