Hi Brenden,
Thanks for putting a post up, it was getting very quiet on this Husqvarna site.
As a rough guide:
The 83's were the first of the white frames, air cooled, alloy tank, drum brakes, twin shock.
The early 84's were the first of the plastic tanks, still twin shock, air cooled with drum brakes.
The late 84's, some of them were liquid cooled.
The 85's were all liquid cooled and single shock, still with front and rear drum brakes.
The 86's was the first Husky to have a disc brake (front only).
The 87 didn't change much except for plastics.
And the rest is history...
Generally speaking, Husqvarna were renowned for being slow to develop new ideas onto their bikes. As you know the Japanese were years ahead with their innovation in this era of rapidly changing motorcycles. Husky were a bit slower with good reason though as they already had lots of world-championships to their name, proving that they were still successful, even if behind their times. If my memory serves me correctly (and this is not always the case!!) the factory made some LC bikes for some of the team ISDE riders in 1984. This later carried on that year in 84 and they then started producing LC bikes for the general market, like the one you are looking at on ebay. Most of these went overseas to the US, as this was their biggest market but some did come to Australia of course. They actually did produce a very limited run of ISDE replica bikes in late 1984. I nearly bought one about 3 years ago but the American, errr... gentleman... was in no way going to sell to Australia!
Finally, Husqvarna were renowned for mixing and matching their parts as a means of using them up (to the point where some bikes even came out with differently branded front/rear tyres to use them up). The Japanese didn't do this. That's why some features would carry on to the production of the next year's model, putting a question mark in years to come of what year/model of bike it actually is! I also dug out my 86 brochure (from when I bought the 86 240WR brand new in Brisbane) and it even shows mismatched parts on the 240 on the front cover.
In my opinion (and this is by no means gospel, it's just what I reckon), I'd say the one you are looking at on ebay is a late 84 (or 84.5 as they sometimes call them). I have just gone down to the shed and had a really close look at my mid-80's Husky's and my 84 wr and I think that the intake manifold does look slightly longer than standard and a little different (well, than the bikes I have here anyway). Don't be put off by any means though and good luck bidding!
One strange thing about these first LC Husky's is that they may not seem to suffer from the corrosion around the water pump like the models that Mike and I have (85,86). I don't know if this is true or not, but I have spoken to a couple of guys in the states with early LC Husky's and they have never even heard of this problem. Strange.
Mike, that photo of your 400 is definitely a 1985, the same as mine.
What do you think about the spelling of the word Husqvarna in the heading? No wonder I couldn't bloody find it!!
Cheers.
