• 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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    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 The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.

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    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!

Where do you adjust the chain on these old beasts?

Motosportz

Motosportz

CH Sponsor
Staff member
Seems like a simple thing but as i am semi new to the vintage thing I have to ask. Bike in question is a 83 XC500. With the swingarm pivot being a good distance from the countershaft and the big spring loaded roller etc. I can guess and proabbly get it right but there must be a method and I'm sure many of you know it. Lay it on me. Thanks.
 
Back in early times (eg when that bike was new) the procedure we used was to take all chain tension off of that spring loaded roller and then quash the rear suspension until swingarm pivot, axle and countershaft were in a straight line, then set chain tension to a pinkie finger wiggle just like your modern 511 since that is the tightest point in the arc.

Of course this isnt as easy to do as it sounds unless you have a fat guy to sit on it (or use tiedowns to hold in position).

I also recall that chains flying off due to the constantly altering tension and swingarm/frame flex was a fairly common problem manifested in lots of bike with now destroyed countershaft covers. Another reason to get ride of any wobble in the swingarm pivot holes.
 
oregonsage pretty much nailed it..some are not a fan of the spring loaded tensioner, but i like them..a ratchet strap can be a big help getting everything lined up..phillip has some nice pieces to upgrade/rebuild the tensioner, especially the new shaft that is equipped with a zerk fitting.

im also thinking of doing the mod involving welding a bung ahead of the axle nut and having double tensioners there, one ahead and one after the axle nut
 
I was just looking at my rear hub thinking it looked like it was cast for a double leading shoe setup and then you posted that. Thats a purdy sprocket, happen to know the brand?
 
This model Can-Am,rear suspension/geometry is very similar to a primary kick,Husky CR/XC.Swingarm length,shock A-B-C triangle,trans output shaft is above centerline of swingarm pivot.No tensioner arm with wheel though.Heres the factory procedure: put trans in gear,raise wheel off ground,turn wheel back to tighten top rung of chain,chain should just touch bottom of82 qualifier 4.jpg swingarm wear pad at intersection of frame tube when raised with finger.
 
thanks dave, i forgot where i saw that before..this came on all 84s? i have a freaking PILE of white swingers and dont think i ever saw that on any of them
 
84 was the first year since the mid 70's that got 'em..not sure if every 84 had one,but I can remember some of the 84's I've owned over the years had them: 510te, 500xc,400wr.Friend of mine has an 84,water cooled 250wr,has one on it.
 
Riding in the wet (like where you live) we'd also take a hacksaw and cut grooves in the brake shoes to help displace water. Anytime you'd cross a stream you'd automatically "ride" the brakes to dry them out.
 
ptkatoomer said:
Riding in the wet (like where you live) we'd also take a hacksaw and cut grooves in the brake shoes to help displace water. Anytime you'd cross a stream you'd automatically "ride" the brakes to dry them out.
Click to expand...


I bought the EBC grooved ones. They actually seem to work better when wet oddly. Tried to be preemptive but I just really need good brakes to ride here.

20140317_171724.jpg
 
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