1977 Husky~How good do they handle?

[vandy010]

i wasn't real sure how to tittle this thread so bear with me for a moment.
ok, so i'm a Yamaha guy in a Husky area.
i've picked up a 77 model Husky frame with the idea of wacking in a TT500 Yammie donk with a view to {you guessed it already} doing a HL500 type of thing.
obviously i've got some mods to do to the frame in order to do the engine swap and as a result, the steering head is one area i'll be working on as the bike will run a Yammy front end.
the main question is,
do the 77 Husky's turn well,track well etc? or would they benefit from a slight change in steering head angle? or should i keep it the same?
eventually the bike will be built to run EVO and not pre~78.
thanks in advance

[JohnnyO]

They are a beautiful handling bike and the basis for the original HL500 but could probably benefit from changing the steering head angle.
I had the steering head angle pulled in by 1 degree on my '83 CR430 and it improved the steering by a lot without losing stability. It made it steer more like a Maico.

[vandy010]

thanks John,
another question i should ask while i'm at it is,
whats the standard shock length? for the 77 framed bikes? as that will help when i do the "mock~up" in the shed.
all i have is the frame and swingarm only. it will be fitted with YZ forks and an 18" rear wheel.

[TT5 Matt]

send colj500 a pm he's done a hl500 faker

[Marc.com]

also try ola_martin  he just built one that looks like the real deal

trick is to get the sidecovers right. You may also want to get your forks worked out and sitting on wheels, just use a couple of bits of flat bar with holes to work out shock length. Mine are 17" to match the Fox Forx

[vandy010]

thanks guys,
i've got a heap of work ahead of me i know and i'm still a while away from getting serious about starting on it.
got a plan in my head and so far it makes sense. mostly i'm interested in any inherent flaws with the 77 Husky frame.
once i get serious i'll move all this over to the Yammy thread and save the Husky guys the anguish...

[Husky500evo]

I think it would be sacrilege to put a big, heavy trailbike motor into a '77 CR Husky 250 or 390 frame  . The Husky is a very competitive & hard to find ,pre '78 weapon. I would consider swapping a '79 CR390 frame & swingarm with you, if yours is an unmolested '77 CR 250 or 390 frame . Standard shocks on the '77 CR were 380mm eye to eye Gas Girlings, but I run 383mm Ohlins remote reserviors on my '77 CR390. It handles nicely & turns better than all my other Huskys. A '77 CR250/390 frame & swingarm should look like this ( note the two crossbrace tubes in the swingarm - they only came on this year model/s ) :

[YUMASTEPSIDE]

I asked this same question of Fernando on the weekend and he suggested the '79 to '81 frame as being better due to the extra height of the frame where the motor sits.............just my two cents worth

                 Roger

[vandy010]

thanks for the pic EVO...
yes, thats the same frame/swingarm as the one i have.
my frame has 2 numbers one each side of the headstock at the base,
ML30097 {i think is 1978 CR125}
&
MK 18892 {i think is 1974 CR/WR250}
which to my limited knowledge is pretty much the same as the 77 frame.
am i right?
PM sent as well.

the guy i got the frame from gave me a choice of the one i have as well as {i think it is} a 79~onwards frame.
i chose this one as it looked to have more engine room and because it looks more like the HL frame than the other. the 79~ on, frame has nicer {HL style} rear shock mounts.
it's all good info, thanks guys.

[firko]

My friend Chris Ellis fitted an XT 500 engine to a '77 Husky frame and the conversion is pretty straight forward. He brought the steering head in 1.5 degrees and fitted '79 or '80 KX125 38mm triple clamps and forks (the first Uni-Trak 125, whatever year that was ) and used an RM250C2 aluminium swingarm. He also used the KX wheels, front and back, the KX seat and the obligatory Yamaha YZ 125X tank. The bike was almost finished until he bought a GMC HL kit so the Husky frame is now being put aside.

a '78 Husky/XT at the TT Muster.

Huskys are 'famous' for being slow turners but unbelievably good handling machines. Huskys definitely need some rider adjustment when changing from a Japanese bike or worse, from a Maico as I did. If you're the type of rider who sits in the one spot and doesn't move around a lot, you'll pretty quickly find yourself moving as far forward as you can in flat corners and berms without even thinking about it.

Back in the early 90s I wrote a lengthy 4 stroke class 'shootout' for ADB that never went to press in its full form due to some weird photo quality issues. During the shootout / photo session we compared the handling of a '73 400 Husky and a similar bike fitted with a 350 XL Honda engine. To our surprise the Honda powered bike turned much better than the stocker. The bikes had virtually identical suspension setups (the same bloke owned both bikes) yet they felt totally different, most notably in corners. A number of different riders including both GE and I tried both bikes and we all came to the same conclusion, that the 4 stroke bike was noticably nicer to ride. GE had a rabid dislike of 4 strokes at the time and it was funny seeing him reluctantly agreeing with the general concensus. For want of any other reasons we came to the conclusion that the extra weight of the Honda engine over the front end had the same effect as 'body English', moving up over the tank during cornering. We noticed the same situation, albeit to a slightly lesser degree, on Anthony Suttors XL250 powered Mk4 'Boat tail' Pursang.

If the extra weight of the extremely lumpy XL500 Yamaha engine has the same effect on the late Husky frame I doubt you'd need to do any steering head modifications. Triple clamp offset, fork length and axle location also have a bearing on the bikes handling/turning ability but to my thinking, I'd leave the rake as is unless you find the bike totally alien to your riding style.

[TT5 Matt]

the bike with #4 is Colin Jay's [colj500] work he did because he was sick of the 390 auto and all their drammas

[firko]

I wonder if Colin would be prepared to part with his auto engine?

[Husky500evo]

    I would think that the ML30097 would be the correct number on Vandy010's frame, as the MK frames are completely different to the MLs . The numbers on all my ML frames are on the right hand side, at the base of the headstock. '77 frames are supposed to have frame numbers starting from ML16000 up to ML22000.  If it is from a '78 CR125, it makes a liar of me saying that the twin crossbrace swingarm only came out on the '77 model bikes . I have not had much to do with Husky 125s, but it always seemed to me that they were the poor cousin of the Husky line-up & ended up lagging behind in development compared to the larger capacity models.
     The '78 CR250/390 frames have tapered roller steering head bearings (where the '77s had ball bearings) & a much bigger diameter tubing used to make the swingarm.   

[TT5 Matt]

Firko
Slob only bronsed on the bottom front mounts so it could go back to it's old self and he dont sell nothing and only buys

[brent j]

I had a 76-77 Husky for a little while. I do remember it didn't like to turn unless you could bounce it off something. I've read this comment on quite a few Huskies of that time and about HL Yamahas too.
When I set up my XT500 early on it cornered the same way.
I changed the front end to run Yamaha triple clamps (25mm offset) and Suzuki fork legs (30mm offset). This reduced the offset of an all Yamaha or all Suzuki front end from 60mm to 55mm and transformed the bike. Now it turned corners when you wanted it to.

Funny thing is that Hotrod Husky in the states sell Husky triple clamps with less (5 or 7mm) offset than std to make them turn.

I think if you can achieve a  steering head angle of 27-28 degrees with 55mm of offset it will be an improvement.

I'd like see how an HL would turn with this set up.

Brent