|
|
|
||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||
|
|
|
|
|||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|||||||||
|
|
|
|
|||||||||
|
|
|
||||||||||
|
|
|
||||||||||
 |
|
 
|
|
It is a pretty long time ago since I first got hooked up at Baker's 6-in-4 Transmission while checking out the aftermarket catalouges. I bet a bunch
of you guys have had the same thought about buying one. 6 gears in a 4-Speed case. 6th gear is overdrive what means you can relax at highway speed by
shifting one up. Less RPM-Orgy and no more "Damn..I had been in the 4th already?!?"-Shifting while you hammer your old ride down the highway thinking
about the RPM what brings tears to your eyes...not to mention the vibrations. - Well...I thought about one for a pretty long time. And "all of a sudden"
while I was removing the ice from inside my garage windows to check for some daylight, the parcel service dwarf stumped through the snow, dragging a huge box
towards my garage door, let me sign some paperworks and left for good.
|
||
|
|
I ordered the transmission directly at Baker Drivetrain in the US. Baker is a sponsor of the 2010 Pre-Evo-Party, so we were in contact about that
anyway. Honestly...without having or wanting to brown-nose the Baker-Guys because they are a sponsor, I can tell you right away that the whole handling
of my order went real smooth! Friendly and supportive contact and every possibility to configure the transmission in the way I wanted. In the technical
circumstances, of course. Starting with the case finish, the overdrive ratio or the gear pattern. AND - the guys at Baker are able to offer setups that
are not listed into every of those big aftermarket catalogs..at least the one I have access to. I you think about buying a Baker Product you should make
sure to check their website before. Link: www.bakerdrivetrain.com
Well...and finally it arrived. I unpacked it with quit a bustle and placed it on my workbench for a first checkup. Great machining, nice and smooth surfaces and great chrome. Visual Inspection passed. After that I draped it at the bench for some pics. By the way...the transmission swap had nothing to do with the fact that my old gearbox was frozen in the past winter at minus 15°C [+5°F]. Maybe some of you read about it here on the site. I had already ordered the 6-in-4 at that time. Ok..here we go. The old transmission was removed from the bike pretty quick. Away with the primary and removing the oil tank. Some additional clearance was made by removing the ignition coil. - A last memory picture "Shovel with 4-Speeds" and in the twinkling of an eye the old gearbox was standing on my workbench. - I placed the old gearbox into my storage for..well..who knows. Having a spare gearbox brings me compulsorily to the idea to start another project. But well...we will see about that later. |
|
||
|
|
The first comparison:
I took a bunch of pictures to compare the old stock with the new Baker 6-in4. You can find them on the left. - Having old and new close together on the workbench you realize how rotten the old shit looks, although you always thought it is in best shape before. But it's just the way it is. Ridden, not hidden and as mentioned earlier I would put it into any other bike without doubt...if I would want to ride 4-speed ever again... Let's get back to the comparison of the two transmissions. The Baker builds about 5cm wider to the right side than the old gearbox. Of course...the two additional gears need some additional space. Baker offers 23 and 24 tooth sprockets for their 6-into-4. There would be room for even larger sprockets cause the 6-in-4 does not have a a fat casting around the sprocket as the old transmission has. Also the Baker sprocket comes with an negative offset of about 3mm towards the transmission side. I guess that makes the attempt to find an alternate aftermarket sprockets useless. Anyhow...I talked about my overall gear ratio with Baker and they came up with the strong suggestion to stay with 24 tooth. That's how I will do it. Also I used 24 tooth before and don't want to change more factors that might have an impact on the final result. - I am curious how the bike will ride with the new tranny! Anyhow..before the first ride there is some work to do. The Baker 6-in-4 has to be build in. Some things stand out immediately. The Baker shifts directly via shifter shaft. No more Ratchet-Top. I want to stay with Jockey-Shift and Suicide Clutch what bings the need of building a new jockey shifter and a new clutch linkage. If I would use a hand operated clutch there wouldn't be any need to modify, of course. The Baker clutch linkage fits the clutch cable in that case. The only thing to adapt would be the connection between shift lever and shifter shaft. The neutral switch now is "late style" and no further the two-pole type that was used on my old transmission. Means, I have to change some of the wireing for the switch. The Baker 6-in-4 is prepared for the use of a speedo sensor. It's not possible to connect the mechanical driven speedo to it. I don't like the idea of having the speedo cable hanging down all the way to my front wheel. That's why I will somehow put in an digital speedo. There's a company called Motogadget that offers very neat stuff here. - More about that later. If you check the aftermarket catalogs you will find the notes that for placing a Baker 6-in-4 into a stock Shovel some modifications on exhaust and oiltank might be necessary. - Ok...here we go. I put "Ma' Baker" into the frame for a first fitting and to check which parts I really have to modify. |
|
|
Prime Primary:
And there it is, the first little problem. I run a custom alloy primary case on my bike and now the inner case hits the sprocket nut of the 6-in-4. Something is too tight here. - First of all... a stock alloy primary would clear the nut without any problems! I have checked it. Reason for my problem is that my swedish custom case is made for the possibility to use it with a rear wheel beltdrive. Compared to a stock case its rear side has a offset towards the clutch basket around the area of the support bearing. Of course the bearing itself is located exactly where it located on every other case. In a stock primary case the support bearing stands towards the inside of the case. Here it stands towards the rear side and has an additional fat casting around for additional strength. This is what gives trouble to the sprocket nut. About 2mm clearance are missing for a smooth fit with the transmission. Also, due to the form of the rear case the shift shaft runs into it [check the pictures for a better explanation]. - Something must be done. By a lucky fortune I have a 5-axle CNC ...err..no...not really. But I know a guy who has a 5-axle CNC mill and a whole bunch of everything that I could need to fix my "primary problem". Some measurements here, some calculating the ready machined primary lays with lots of space at the problem places on the table. Rear side casting around the support bearing milled down and milled some clearance for the shifter shaft. The main shaft of the Baker-Transmission as a diameter of 25mm, by the way. Stock shafts have 25.4mm. That makes it necessary to change the support bearing in your stock inner primary to the one Baker delivers together with the 6-in-4. The bearing Baker ships has an additional ring pressed on. Together with that ring the outer bearing diameter is the same than the outer diameter of the stock bearing and fits tight to its seat in the rear of the case. To get some extra clearance between the bearing and the sprocket nut, we line bored the inner collar of the bearing seat a few hundred millimetres to be able to move the bearing about 2mm towards the inside of the case. It still carries enough on the shaft and flushes now with the inside of the case. We shortened the bearings additional outer ring to flush with the rear side of the bearing. Together with the rotary shaft seal this gives enough clearance between sprocket, case and bearing. - I hope you could at least somehow follow my explanations about the mods. Check also the pictures, they might explain better. As mentioned earlier the whole inner primary has an offset to the left side. Due to that the original stud bolds are too short. I have changed them to the ones I used in my old transmission. |
|
|
I want to stick with Jockey Shift and Suicide Clutch. The Ratchet Top is gone and so I need to build a new Jockey Shifter. Baker ships an short shift shaft extension together with the tranny. That extension is mounted directly to the shaft and is made to be connected to the foot shifter. Well..why it sits there I just took a 12mm round steel bar, bend it the way I wanted my shift lever to sit and welded it to the shaft extension. Some grinding for a smooth look and of to the powdercoater. After about a week my good old skull shift-knob sits on top and the shiter is ready for Rock'n Roll. Another thing to do is to connect the clutch pedal to the transmissions clutch lever. Baker send me their 14 degree clutch arm together with the 6-in-4. I cut off the cable gap and put a 6mm thread into. In the next step the linkage had to be cut, bent, adjusted and connected to pedal and clutch arm. I make the connection by using two ball joints. - Ready for Suicide Clutching! |
|
The Baker 6-in-4 builds further to the right side of the bike. I did not make any measuring about this but is quit a bit. You can see the difference on the pics. In all those aftermarket catalogs they have a note that modifications on exhaust and oil tank might need to be done. - So it was on my bike. However the exhaust modifications were a quick job and no big deal. I thought it would be complicated and thought about a completely different exhaust in the beginning. - But there was no need for! After I had the 6-in-4 mounted on its final place I could check the lower [front] exhaust pipe to see what and were I might need to modify something. Fits not too bad on the first attempt. Some clearance above the pipe is needed and the Supertrapp Muffler needs to be placed a little backwards. That's it! I used a little thicker exhaust gasket what lowered the whole setup a little and my cut off dragpipe was still long enough to place the muffler a little behind its old position. Because of its tapered style it would have hit the kicker cover, else. I also changed the two lower Allen head screws against fillister Allen head screws, what gave me additional clearance between muffler and transmission. It's tight but it works. Building a new mounting bracket for the muffler was a quick job and the front pipe fits and is ready for action. - The extended extra heavy duty Baker kicker-arm clears the Muffler now by 2-3mm. REAL tight - but works. Ok...this is for the lower pipe and muffler. After I did all this measuring and fine tuning on the lower pipe to reach all the clearings between pipe and transmission, kicker and muffler I noticed that the mighty Baker Kicker Arm won't clear my upper pipe. There's no other way than to use my old Elbow-Style Kicker. Certainly with the cool bronze pedal Baker uses on their kicker arms. Baker offers two different versions of their kicker arms, long and short, but even the short one did not clear that upper pipe. - Swingarm frame with dragpipes... My horseshoe oiltank clears the transmission without any problems. There is a lot of space between it's mounting bracket and the top transmission cover. If I would use a hand operated clutch I would not need to change anything here. However, because of the ball joint I use to connect the clutch arm with the pedal linkage I need modify the plate that sits below the tanks battery case because the joint scratches the plate. I cut a quick and perfect in form hole into the plate. My battery sits on top of a layer of rubber foam, so it won't hurt anything if the ball joint drags in there. |
|
|
My old tranny was equipped with a two contact neutral switch. Baker uses a "Late-Style"-Switch here. So I need to change some of my wirings to connect the switch to the dash. No big deal. The switch switches ground. I have connected the control light to switched plus at the ignition switch and use one of the old wires to connect the switch. A little extension of the cable was needed. That's it. The other old cable stays were it was before. Who knows what I might use it for in the future. The speedo was a challenge. Before my speedo cable was connected to the 4-Speed directly. Speedo was placed in the dash on my gas tank. But the 6-in-4 is not made to connect a mechanical driven speedo. It comes with a port to connect a hall sensor. Means for me, I have to think about a new speedo solution. Speedo cable to the front wheel was no option for me. I don't like the look. Not clean enough. To place a extra digital speedo somewhere at the handle bar would be a way...but I think on my bike it would look bullshit. I wanted to stay with the dash-type speedo, without something like Dakota-Digital speedo that looks like from a Captain Future magazine from the 70th. A original HD-Digital-Speedo would have been a solution but first of all they aren't cheap to have and second the sensor itself costs about 80-90 Euro. - Ok...what should I do? - Motogadget Motoscope Tiny is the solution! A tiny digital speedo with analog dial and indicator, 49mm [~2"] in diameter and right now available as special "Vintage" edition. The price is a kick in the balls ..but..what the hell! - I ordered. In one of my parts boxes in the workshop I had an old dash style aftermarket speedo with broken glass. The idea...I put the Motoscope Tiny into the old dash speedo and keep the old look that way! I brought the dial to a guy how does jet cutting. He made a hole in there right the size I needed without scratching any of that old dial. I wanted the hole to be moved towards the lower half of the dial, around the area of the former trip counter. By this I could use the modified counter mechanism to mount everything together. Tight...yes..but works! I mutilated the counter mechanism the way that the digital speedo finds enough clearance. A glazier made a new glass for a couple of bucks. Now it was just to put everything together, wire it and ..down the road I went! The speedo sensor, by the way, sits on a bracket that I placed on the swingarm. The magnet, which is needed to give a signal to the speedo, is glued to the rear chain sprocket with 2-component special glue. |
|
|
|
After I put everything together I was nervous like a kid on Christmas to go for the first test ride. What I had experienced with a big grin on my first 6-Speed-Ride was confirmed on the second tour. Highway Tripp with Evo- and TwinCam-Buddies behind me. What shall I say!? - I wish I would have had this transmission way before! It is amazing! Switches superb precisely and neutral is always easy to find, no matter if you shift 3-2-1-N (up) or try to get in neutral directly by shifting 3-2-N ...ok...the now opposite gear pattern in Jockey Shifting compared to a Ratched Top is something you should be aware of. But it's nothing to worry about and I got used to that real quick. Baker offers different shift patterns by the way. But I wanted to stay stock because I might somewhen switch back to foot shift...or not...who knows. But the true highlight is the Overdrive! Highway, due to my stroker motor, always was a pain in the ass (literally) because the bike vibrated so bad from about 110 km/h (70 mph) up. You can go mostly at least 120 km/h (75 mph) on the german Autobahn. On many tracks there is no speed limit at all! You can guess how it is to ride the Autobahn with an Shovel or any other old bike. Thanks to the Overdrive I can now go easily and relaxed 130km/h (80 mph) and faster without those bad vibrations and the bad feeling that you will break your engine's neck due to the high RPM. Sure, some when the vibartions get through but the "bad vibes area" has moved up far on my speed range. When riding the "bad vibes area" now, there is more to worry about. Stuff like tears in the eyes because the shades won't hold against the wind, a slowly backwards sliding jet helmet and not to forgett, the whole bike is not made to go 150-160km/h on the Autobahn. ...But I could - if I wanted! That is a enjoyable thought and good to know. After we arrived at the party we were on the road for on that second tripp I mentioned, my Evo-riding Buddy was asking "What the hell is wrong with you?! I ride on your side for so many years now, and all of a sudden you get in a hurry?!" My TwinCam-Buddy noticed a much better acceleration and was also surprised about my new cruising speed. I had some doubt about if 6 gears might be too much to shift in Jockey-Style. But those doubt was gone on the first miles. And now, after I rode about 1.000 miles I can tell you, everything smooth, cool and easy! 
|
|
||
