Dream come true, sort of...

Hello,

my long time dream have been a one cylinder four stroke enduro bike (even longer just to have any bike again, after some decades). Late last summer I went to pick up a car for a friend from England, to drive it to Finland and have a nice low key road trip on the way. I managed to purchase a hardly starting Husaberg FE 400 -98 that had been standing for a while, in Germany. We stuffed the bike into the station wagon and off I drove.

At home I cleaned the carburetor and changed the fuel. I ended up getting the bike started after sweating a lot and rode it a couple of hundred meters and pushed it back thinking this is exactly same as it was some 30 years ago with mopeds, except this is heavier to push. I managed to get it started second time and now rode around for perhaps five minutes, at max, and hit a fallen tree in an odd angle and the bike fell (zero speed) and the engine died. Didn't get it started again. I guess it was next evening when I was kicking it again, and sweating. I had read this and other forums to look for help for the starting problem and had come across of stories about people braking legs while kick starting these things and off course this was distantly in my mind every time I was exhausted and kicking the bike. This time it kicked back and I was lying on the ground for a while. I was at my old farm and had to weld a friend's car, so I ended up eating painkillers, putting some scarf or multiple socks on the swollen ankle and moving around leaning to a wooden stick. After over a week I went to a hospital because it had not healed and they found the achilles tendon had been torn off the heel bone. It's been about half a year and it's pretty well healed now, but still reminding of itself now and then and every morning for example, when it's been in rest for longer time. I'm not eager to brake my feet / ankle / leg immediately again, and for the summer (rather wait until the autumn). So I'll try to do a few things that may help starting the bike better. What I think I should check, so far: 1. ignition (coil, timing, new plug), 2. valves (timing, clearance), 3. carburetor (new needle, valves?), 4. adjusting the decompressor. I will be happy to hear any helpful hints for getting the bike to start better, and explanations of why the kick start lever breaks legs.

Greetings from Finland

I do a video on my Taffmeisters Facebook page about doing the ignition timing on a 1998. you want 33d BTDC but you may see 66d as it can double the figure. have the strobe ready to go. you are an ***** if you go for a ride.
I would get my easy start kit for rebuilding the carb and I would go to a manual choke up on the handlebars. it needs its own;
conversion kit at the carb to cable from flip choke
its own cable up to the bars
a perch and lever for it.

valve clearances are hard to get right but taffy's golden rule is that if you can morse code the rocker arms at the ed you must be able to hear 'tick-tick' at the rear licence plate and no further.

Taffy

My finnish friend. I have been there. And i feel your pain. I limped around for almost a week before going to get an xray and the Norwegian healt system are so great they said that most likely some tendons were ripped and that they couldn't do anything about because that would accuire an operation and that they wouldn't do it. Because they "normally" wouldn't operate on torn tendons. So its been 2 yrs and 3 months now and i still feel it if its cold or if i do any weird movement. I sold the 400 that did this to me even though i fixed the electric start and converted the starter to 24v so it would start up first try. I promised myself to not ever buy a big 4stroke without a electric starter again so what did i do last November? I bought a unseen husaberg 600 without a working electric starter. Yes. I did. Im a moron. I painted it. Adjusted the vents, cleaned the carbs, cleaned the tank, and after watching about 50 videoes on how to start a 4 stroke i put on my best motorcycle boots, strapped them as tight as i could, put on the fresh new 98 octane fuel all fresh in a empty tank and primed the kick with the ignition off until i had the kickstart in the perfect position, and only then i switched the key on and gave it my one kick. I did this 3 times and on the third kick without choke it ran and idled perfect. But omg i was so scared. Now im just waiting until the snow is gone and i can try it for the first time.

This is my first start up on this bike since i bought it and its the first attempt on a 4stroke since i screwed my leg. Haha so i was so nervous here.

brave man!

Taffy

Taffy said:

brave man!

Taffy

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Haha, not really. Just broke perhaps. Beggars cant be choosers.
But i remember you gave me much good advice 3 years ago on the 400 when i was fixing that, i even called you. That was some good service.
I wish i could just have had the finance to remove the engine on this 600 and shipped it to you so you could split the engine and change whatever last owner took out but it was either that or i had to do ut myself or learn to kickstart it and get over my fear or another 3 months limping around. Haha.
Here is my 600 from November and from here the other day. Just need to change front tire and try it. Its still ice here, and i bought it unseen and delivered to my door in November.
Hope I don't offend any purists here, but it was already painted black and yeah, im not that kinda guy.
I have done up my KTM 640 also, and have had a couple of those, and still have one. I also have a 250cc 1978 Husqvarna cr wich i have owned since about 1993 or so.

Hah!

Thank you for the comments! Much appreciated, and Taffy, I'll look into that video on FB, and the other stuff you mention. Tobbegutt, I think I have an idea about how you felt the moment of trying to start it for the first time... I'd suppose a 600 is even meaner in that way (as well). How on earth can you (or me) have that confidence to kick it with full force and not do it "the half way", which would probably be the worst idea, and is my fear. I'm thinking about trying to start my 400 first time with a gear pushing/going downhill. Needles to say I didn't have any proper boots - the too loose safety boots may have saved some bones in the foot though. My achilles tendon was not operated, but treated the conservative way, as they called it: a plaster cast for 4 weeks and a removable support boot for two weeks. The times were supposed to be the other way around, but they misplaced the invitation.

Even a lot more snow here, so not in a hurry with this. My playground (an old farm) is also 90km away, so not able to do stuff just anytime. I spend more time over there during the snowless half of the year. I also need to refresh my memory, because it's been that half a year since I did all of that reading and googling.

Not a purist here, but I do appreciate clean original machines My bike was also painted, but it's all right to me for now. Also, exactly a "beggar" here, so this was kind of my first and last option, for now! I think this -98 never had an electric starter, but if I remember correctly it seems to have a spot for one. But reading and hearing how bad those older starters are I haven't really thought about installing one. I don't know if it would be possible / easy / a good idea to make a separate starter (not attached to the bike) out of a car starter. Not many pictures of my bike, but this one is from the first ride, after it already died after a couple hundred meters (for too much choke) and I already tried to start it for a while. And the foot a couple of days later...

ihminen said:

Hah!

Thank you for the comments! Much appreciated, and Taffy, I'll look into that video on FB, and the other stuff you mention. Tobbegutt, I think I have an idea about how you felt the moment of trying to start it for the first time... I'd suppose a 600 is even meaner in that way (as well). How on earth can you (or me) have that confidence to kick it with full force and not do it "the half way", which would probably be the worst idea, and is my fear. I'm thinking about trying to start my 400 first time with a gear pushing/going downhill. Needles to say I didn't have any proper boots - the too loose safety boots may have saved some bones in the foot though. My achilles tendon was not operated, but treated the conservative way, as they called it: a plaster cast for 4 weeks and a removable support boot for two weeks. The times were supposed to be the other way around, but they misplaced the invitation.

Even a lot more snow here, so not in a hurry with this. My playground (an old farm) is also 90km away, so not able to do stuff just anytime. I spend more time over there during the snowless half of the year. I also need to refresh my memory, because it's been that half a year since I did all of that reading and googling.

Not a purist here, but I do appreciate clean original machines My bike was also painted, but it's all right to me for now. Also, exactly a "beggar" here, so this was kind of my first and last option, for now! I think this -98 never had an electric starter, but if I remember correctly it seems to have a spot for one. But reading and hearing how bad those older starters are I haven't really thought about installing one. I don't know if it would be possible / easy / a good idea to make a separate starter (not attached to the bike) out of a car starter. Not many pictures of my bike, but this one is from the first ride, after it already died after a couple hundred meters (for too much choke) and I already tried to start it for a while. And the foot a couple of days later...
View attachment 16495

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Hahahaha, looking at your foot its just like seeing mine. And i remember the pain. I have never ever experienced something like that before. I had just done the vents and cleaned the carbs on my 400 and i was finished, it started on the electric starter, it was ready to go. It was December. I was just cleaning up the tools and was taking out a well deserved beer from my beer refrigerator right next to my bikes in my workshop and then i had this genious idea to see if it would start on the kick. So i turned on the ignition and standing next to it in my sweatpants and with CROCS i gave it a kick and of course the ***** backfired immideately kicking my toes so im sure they touched my chin and my Crocs flew away and i yelled out so loud even my fiance bothered to come and check because i had never yelled like that before. Lol. I even have the video on security cameras. That sucked.

I tried bumpstart my 400 on hill but i needed to have the incredible steep hill to get it going because the compression is insane so i needed 6 gear and i needed to jump on my seat on asphalt to get it to turn over leaving a black skid mark. So i needed that one to work.
Not sure what is bothering yours, but i would clean the jets and all the holes i would find with metal wires from a electric wire so you are 350% sure that the jets are open and not even a small piece of debris is there. And adjust the vents and make sure its on the correct top dead center. Feel the vents as they are loose one the correct one and stiff one the other one.
Check the fuel valve because it may have a filter on it inside the tank and it may be clogged up and it may also be water inside tank and when it's time to use reserve you are screwed. So check all that.
Just dont switch on the Killswitch before you have the piston ready to go for that one kick and most likely you will be ok. I believe when you are frustrated and start kicking it like its a 2 stroke and hoping it will fire thats when accidents happen. Watch some videos, put the piston in the correct place, lift up the kick, take a deep breath, relax, think, turn on the ignition and Killswitch and kick it one time. If you use choke and you can feel its like almost holding back and it feels dead turn off the choke and it most likely will fire and you will Also feel its different to kick without choke on. Very strange. Dont know why but its like choke makes its 5 times harder to kick.
Just take it one kick at the time and make sure every kick counts. If its hard to start its something wrong. So check all first now while its winter.
I believe in you.

I had a FE600e here, one owner from new so i bought it to sell on and it is the one in the video on ignition timing for 1989-1998 bikes. It didn't want to start either and I got it going through old school know how.

while it was running, I set the carb and the ignition timing and then with the choice of two positions for the pilot screw being OK, I found only one of them restarted the bike OK. From that moment on - warm - it started first time on the kick. But it would not electric start and when cold.....forget it!
So I knew I had to do three things;
1. easy start kit for the carb and a change to the slide height.
2. put an adjustable choke lever up on the handlebars
3. take the rocker cover off and set the auto decomp spring better

after this, it started on the button from cold everytime.

I never understand why people stopped using this web site and went to Facebook instead because good information is lost within a week and I'll be ****** if I want to keep putting up the same info again and again, and again!!
an iridium plug and good tappet adjustment are vital as well as a gel-cel battery.

I've also often poured a drop of fuel down into the bottom of the rubber boot.
I have a special tool by 'blue point' (snap-on) that you lay next to a plug and if when you kick or press the button it flashes, you know that the plug is sparking. this was a godsend in the workshop otheerwise plugs would have been in or out all day!
But we would pull plugs out not to check for spark but to see if the plug was WET as sometimes, Dell Ortos have a habit of not passing any fuel at all after a rebuild. that's when you pour fuel down into the rubber boot. With the vibration of the engine during its first attempt to start, the carb then starts functioning!

Taffy

Thanks again! Just to mention and remind, it was a long time dream in my possession, so I kind of wanted to have that first ride quickly and I also was busy welding that friend's Mazda 6 so I kept on kicking it like a 2-stroke (the bike, not the car) rather than took time to do these necessary preparations, except for what I was able to do to clean up the carb and tank. I think I also took apart the fuel valve. The carb was flooding at a time, but I assume that was because of too much choke. So, do I understand correctly, that not much of choke for these things? I mean, if I start an older car with a manual choke, I'll keep that choke on for a while after the start, but with these machines you'll take the choke off _latest_ when it starts, but maybe sometime even before? I think I'm slowly getting the idea of adjustable choke, slowly! Being extremely short on budget atm I'm now thinking about making that choke DIY-way as well..

ihminen said:

Thanks again! Just to mention and remind, it was a long time dream in my possession, so I kind of wanted to have that first ride quickly and I also was busy welding that friend's Mazda 6 so I kept on kicking it like a 2-stroke (the bike, not the car) rather than took time to do these necessary preparations, except for what I was able to do to clean up the carb and tank. I think I also took apart the fuel valve. The carb was flooding at a time, but I assume that was because of too much choke. So, do I understand correctly, that not much of choke for these things? I mean, if I start an older car with a manual choke, I'll keep that choke on for a while after the start, but with these machines you'll take the choke off _latest_ when it starts, but maybe sometime even before? I think I'm slowly getting the idea of adjustable choke, slowly! Being extremely short on budget atm I'm now thinking about making that choke DIY-way as well..

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Take one kick with it on and then turn it off. Next kick it will fire

Hello Husa-folks!

Finally got some time to look at the bike again! I checked the valve clearance and adjusted (to 0,10mm), was only slightly too much. A question came in my mind: are all of the valves supposed to be fully closed every time the piston is in TDC, or only every second time, when the ignition is supposed to happen? The manual gives the impression it's the case every round. In my case at least the exhaust valves close _after_ the piston has left the TDC, every second round (of crank), when exhaust is happening. Also When reaching the point of ignition the exhaust valves open just a little a few decrees before ignition (if I'm reading the marks correctly) and close again half way in between the ignition and TDC, what the heck? I quess off with the rocker cover?
Realised I need a puller to get to the ignition timing, so that must wait. And I'm sure I ordered before some new spark plugs, but now can only find some of wrong type. So, must put them in the next order (I order car parts now and then).

are all of the valves supposed to be fully closed every time the piston is in TDC

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never really thought about that, but if you set the valves at tdc after exhausts close, your exhaust valves's clearances will be WAY off. so i say the answer is "no"

ned37 said:

never really thought about that, but if you set the valves at tdc after exhausts close, your exhaust valves's clearances will be WAY off. so i say the answer is "no"

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I thought you're supposed to do it after / when the valves in question are fully closed. And in the end it doesn't even matter where the piston is.
Off course the ultimate question is if my valve timing is right. Any way to check that without taking the valve cover off? I have searched, not found anything.
Is it just an error by the makers of the manual, that it only tells you to "put the engine in TDC" to do the valve adjustment and not specify that it needs to be at the correct phase?

The tdc need correct phase.
This also almost ****** me up first time.
One wrong phase tdc the valve rockers are stiff and if you try adjust them its impossible.
On the next stroke the rocker arms are lose and you can freely adjust the vents correct then.
I used also a plastic straw to check my tdc was really on top just to be sure

Two questions remain unanswered. I took videos to illustrate both of them, but apparently no videos allowed here. I'll try to get a link to them.
1. When I rotate the flywheel clockwise the exhaust valves open about 3mm a several degrees (10-15) before the ignition mark is coming to it's place and close again right after the ignition mark has passed. This happens during the phase when the combustion heppens. This cannot work.
2. When I push the kickstart lever and the decompression is activated there is absolutely no movement in the exhaust valves / rockers. To me it seems there cannot be decompression therefore. I can easily move the decomp-switch as much with my fingers, no resistance besides the spring.
Okay, here are the short few second videos, hope the links work:
Decomp in action
Valves opening when not supposed to (Here, you can't see it, but all I do is I turn the flywheel clockwise by hand starting from about 90 degrees before TDC, past the ignition position, about up to the TDC.

You need to come here.

the '98 fe400 i had was a kickstart only (isn't that right, taffy?), a fe400e was electric or kick. it seems you have the fe400. it has 2 decomps. one is on the camshaft and works(?) as you rotate the engine. the other one is actuated by the kickstarter (you can actuate it by pushing the k/s down partway and let it go back up. you will (hopefully)hear a click as it engages. if you don't actuate the k/s decomp, it will usually be hard to kick thru. the one in your video is the kickstart.
keep in mind my old brain is fried, and my comments may just come from a dream i had. if the exhaust valves are not set properly, neither decomp will work. my 400 was the hardest starting husaberg i had (right, taffy?). most people gave up on the k/s decomp and pulled the cable off in frustration.
try setting both intake and exhaust at tdc after intake closes (true tdc) and make sure the k/s decomp is not actuated, then adjust the k/s decomp to touch the valve then back it off about a half turn. it should touch the valve only when actuated.
the decomp on the cam is probably knackered and needs replaced.
good luck

Thanks Ned! Too late though. I opened the cover and everything is as they should. Both of my questions were because of the same reason. The bike has two decomps, just like Ned said. One is attached to the cam wheel and works by gravitation when the motor is not running and by centrifugal force when the motor is running and spinning the camshaft. Therefore when rotating the flywheel by hand the cam-decomp is activated (and should be) and opens the exhaust valves a little when the pressure is the highest (you can see the little thing in the pic, piston at TDC). And the kick starter actuated decomp is _secondary_ to the fully automatic cam-decomp and therefore when the cam-decomp works as it should and the exhaust valves are already opened by it the kick start decomp does nothing and I guess that's how it is supposed to be. So, I opened the cam cover for nothing and now I have to waste a day to try to take all of that silicon gasket stuff off.. No really, I learned how this actually works. Hopefully me or some one else finds this helpful in the future. (I won't remember any of this next time.)

there is only a small mark on the flywheel to show where TDC is and an even smaller one on the crankcase. Both are hard to see.

Best to turn the engine over with both rocker inspection covers off using a 17mm ring spanner. use a straw to get the piston to the top. use the straw through the plug hole.

after the inlets have closed you have a little further to go to TDC and while on the way you will see the exhaust valves nudge 1mm as they go over the auto decomp bump. this is why you can't just wait for the inlet valves to close and say to yourself; 'that will do'.

when you have set the valve clearances, Taffy's golden rule is that you must hear the tick-tick of the tappets when playing morse code with the rocker arms and hear them 'just' at the rear licence plate and no further.
when you start a Husaberg, you must be prepared to strobe the ignition and set the carburettor. Never let it go cold again until these two are set.

Taffy