Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/126245
ImRresslon: HUsqvarna's slick- shifting 360 Automatic By Charles M or ey urleson must have known . There's one quick way to impress a first· time Automatic rider, and that's to put him in a tight woods riding clutch-slipping situation and let him discover that the Husqvarna 360 Automatic will do all the work . We'd been siuing around the Husqvarna Service Depa rt m ent, going through the ingenious four-speed transmission both on paper and in actual tear-down of one of ou r two test bikes . The preliminary explanation -- ac - . companied by cross-section drawings and a set of transm ission innards used to train mechanics -- took a lot longer than the tear- down part. We 'd had lots of questions which probably drove the three-time National Enduro champ to the point where onl y a good fast woods ride could clear his head . But King Richard had held up well, doing his temporary duty as public relations man with the same exacting care he puts into picking the right line through a tough woods section. When it was over , we knew the "whats," "whys," and "hows" , of the transmission 's function. Impressed as we were , skepticism still persisted. Through past experience with torque converter equipped vehicles , we'd been programmed to expect .lors of slippage, not enough clutch/rhrot_tle control to handle a slippery riding situation, and a strange useless feeling in our left hand and foot due to the lack of clutch and shifter levers. Riding the 360 Automatic reprogrammed those expectations to a far higher level. Any other automatic transmission motorcycles we may test in the future will have to have their act together. The H usky was right! 'J ust try riding it up and down the road ; try different throttle positions: and get a feel for the way the tran smission works. You can make it shift a little- earlier or later, just like any automatic transmission, - by applying different amounts of throttle. " Dick Burleson's training technique lacked _ nothing in understanding of both ma chine and his semi -capable student, We started with the basics but quickly progressed to interesting woods riding problems .. due mostly to the machine's abilities , not mine. Located in an industrial complex in rural Lavergne, Tennessee, the Husk y Service Center offers plenty of riding challenges just outside the back door. Our first off-road venture took us through a relatively tight woods section '.. the trail was so vague that Dick lost it and started breaking his own .. and it became immediately apparent that the 360 Automatic could make you into a pleasantly lazy rider. . Riding at low speed, elbowing .vines aside and pushing saplings away from the handlebars with our feet, the first gear clutch proved its smoothness and controllability . We didn't get into second gear once and the automatic clutch refused to snatch, slip or otherwise make life difficu lt. It was a treat to be able to simply hang on and con centrate on the terrain. From the fairly smooth , leafcovered forest floor, we moved up one notch on the King Richard Woods Riding Difficulty Scale to a vine covered log section. Where we'd appreciated the ease afforded , the by B 8 (Abovel Our hosts, Dick Burleson lIeft! and Bob Popiel (rightl shared the fas t easy job of tearing down the test machine. Using the special tool kit that comes with the bike along with standard wrenches they did a complete no-sw eat removal of the entire gearbox in about fifteen minutes. (Below l There's a little Swede inside - see his hand? - who shifts gears for you. Note that the top end is still intact. the cases aren 't split. and the whole thing's still even in the frame, (Bottom left) A 36mm Bing, ru bber mounted to insulat e it from engine heat. incorporates a choke and does the breathing for the 354cc motor. (Bottom ri ght) The handlebar mounted starting lever and the reminder decal on the gas tank are the only rep lacements you get for clutch and gear shift levers. transmission 's do ing the work for us in the earlier section, we now thanked it for making the diffi cult easy. It was one of thos e deals where the logs, which ranged in size from four-inch diameter to a 18" in cross section, were spaced a t exactly th e wrong distance apart. At just the point where the bike would want to hang up on the frame over one log , there'd be another one to stop the front wheel at precisely the wrong instant. In short, it was a tricky place to exercise good clutch control. With th e Automatic , however, we cou ld keep a death grip on both handgrips , gas it up a little, and bou nce happily on through, feet flailing and kicking to keep everything in a fai rly vertical plane. It wasn 't necessary to keep the left hand ready to grab the clutch to prevent stalling the motor -the automatic transmission handled that .. and it was virtually impossible to kill the motor. The few times that we did get hung up in the logs, we simply dialed the throttle on slowly, throwing our weight forward at the same time, and the rear wheel would climb up over the log like a Caterpillar tractor. The fact that a properly tuned Automatic is impossible to stall is perha ps the one major point that'll appeal to a lot of woods riders. Trying to restart a stalled bike on the side of a steep slippery hill or in a: muddy streambed becomes no more than an unpleasant memory -- it can't happen on the Automatic. Naturally , as ' we studied the machine's behavior we made notes of things we'd change if we rode one of these things on a full time basis, For eastern enduro use, the handlebars cou ld use a trim .. we nicked a bunch of trees with 'em. And, as. part of the same enduro-readying program, we'd also slide the fork tubes up through the triple clamps a little, half or threequarters of an inch probably, for quicker turning in the tight stuff. At the same time we were thinking about what we'd cha nge, we also tempered any criticism by watching Burleson handle the same riding problems, riding an identical machine, with ease . The onl y thing that slowed him was the human an chor that followed in his tracks. From the log section we progressed· on to a rocky section. Again , in a situation much similar to the log problem, jouncing over a rock garden is a whole bunch easier when you don't have to work that clutch lever. You can hang on tight, and put all your energy toward picking a clear line and controlling the throttle. In effect, it makes it a one-control job: The throttle. "You really learn to concentrate on throttle control, ~ Bob Popiel had explained earlier. Bob rides, and wins races like the Jack Pine 400 mile National End uro , on a 360 Automatic. "You probably won't like it a t first," he'd continued, offering a m uch welcomed relief to the standard it's -wonderfu l attitude you'll run into when you visit" any manufacturer's facility . Our first impression was so good that we didn't dislike the bike at all , but later in the afternoon we found out what he'd meant. Up until this point we'd ru? strictly