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 The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.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

Winterizing 1976 360WR and a 1974 250WR

KIM750

Husqvarna
AA Class
I got these bikes this past fall. I'm scheduled for surgery on my hand so I won't be riding them for a while. Plus, I live in Maryland, and winter gets a little chilly for me anyway. The bikes probably won't be touched for a couple of months. They have non-ethanol fuel with stabilizer in them now. My plan is to drain the gas tanks, and drain the carbs (Mikuni and Bing). Spray a little WD 40 in each tank to try to ward off any surface corrosion that may happen with an empty tank. I'm going to take out the plugs, spray a little fogging oil in each cylinder, lightly kick over the bikes without plugs to distribute the fogging oil, and hand-tighten the plugs back in. I've about 15 minutes of ride time on the gear oil, so that's staying put. I had intended to take the bikes apart and go over everything, but that'll have to wait for a few months anyway. I'm going to get bike stands from somewhere (any ideas?), and get them on stands and the weight off the tires. I'll wipe all the rubber stuff down with armor-all or some equivalent.

I've laid up boats for years, but never bikes--I'd just take 'em for a short ride every other week or so. This is the first time I've ever laid up bikes. Anything else that I should do? Am I doing anything that's a bad idea?
 
should be fine since you are using real gas. either drain everything or fill full with fuel. does your garage get damp or anything? the bikes are likely fine just sitting there.
 
My sense is you have a very thorough plan to winterize your bikes! Using E-0 fuel is a big help in this process.
Pull the mag covers to make sure there is no moisture trapped inside the non-vented covers.
If your bikes stay in a cold garage...your biggest concern will be in the spring when that first day of warm, moist eastern shore air hits that cold metal!
It will look like your bikes were just hosed down!
So...wipe down any exposed metal...nuts, bolts, fork tubes, spokes, etc. with an oily rag or metal protectant like Boeshield.
I use the aluminum (or steel...) push-down-on-the-pedal MX stands available from dealers or mail order...or Harbor Freight.
Or milk crates or wooden stands...

And get those WR's (and your hand) ready for riding in next year's AHRMA Mid-Atlantic Cross Country series! Quite a few events within a few hours drive of you.
 
If you want to use fogging oil, spray it into the carburetors while the engines are running and let it coat the crank also, this is how you fog watercraft. Otherwise I think your plan is excellent.
 
Maxima makes a great product called 'MPPL' which is a multi-purpose penetrating fluid/Fogging Oil.
 
Drain tanks and the carby's.

Wheel bikes into lounge room,

and cover with a blanket.

Job Done!

:thumbsup:
 
If you want to use fogging oil, spray it into the carburetors while the engines are running and let it coat the crank also, this is how you fog watercraft. Otherwise I think your plan is excellent.

Definately!! It was no fun after having a 78 Honda CB750 accidentally winter outside after getting it for a bargain price. In the spring I found all 4 pistons had the sleeves rust around them. Then I found out about fogging. We learn the hard way sometimes
 
In a pinch, a 5 gallon bucket works for a center stand as well. The bucket will likely crack over the winter, but won't fail/drop the bike as long as it's on level concrete. Otherwise, what you describe sounds good, a lot of bikes survive many a winter with a tank that's either top-full, or bone dry, and a drained carb bowl.
 
Thanks for the replies. Both bikes are "winterized." With luck, I'll be kicking them over in a couple of months. I took them both for a little ride around the neighborhood yesterday. I really don't have anywhere nearby to really ride them. The neighborhood streets (they're both tagged), and through some trails where you really can't get out of second. Even with that they're fun. Especially the 360. Lots of fun. Thanks again.
 
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