10th Nov 07
My gearbox was getting noisy at the last track night. The oil drained out showed how metallic & dirty it had got in its short run.
Was having a chat with The Bearing Guy, & he says that the slightest pitting of the race during assembly will shorten the lifespan dramatically. I'd hammered them, having got caught out by the difficulty in getting the bearings to seat, the loctite Bearing lock, & the whole assembly back together.
This time around the gearbox-rebuild was mine, but also Shel's as a cautionary measure, & she also wanted an UpGear, too.
I invested in a collet type bearing puller that cost a few hundred.....alot of money, but worth it. When I do the bearings again I wont be frustrated with having to try think up abstract ways (surreal even!) of removing the bearings that you can see in the pic below which is seated quite deep in the gearbox housing.
We went for a test ride yesterday, & Shelley is excited by her "new bike". "New" because with the upgear & a new torque driver. The torque driver seems to hold onto a low gear, at take off, & after some seconds releases to let the revs drop a bit as the bike speeds up. It's almost like having a 1st gear in the CVT or another powerband that the Upgear Kit had ironed out. Even with 4.4g rollers that are designated as being the race rollers for accelleration she topped 90-100kph, & to me, the bike didn't sound like it was screaming.
I wasn't interested in seeing how fast the bike could go as I'd been stung too many times already with varyous seizes, with the bike coming to a skidding halt. Also though, I know my Dayco drive belt is slightly shorter than Shel's OEM belt. I'm only interested in the track performance of the bike.
I'm hoping for some feedback from the Australia rep for Dayco...we've exchanged some emails already, & maybe some samples will be coming my way. I really want to nail that length spec on their website that says the belt is 10mm longer than is printed on the belt with the same part number. I'm after a slightly longer belt that would give me some confidence in going full speed.
Anyways, Shel & I did our 30K test run. Her oil came out a bit dirty & some metallic particles....hopefully, this is only from the new gears. My oil was clean....Woo Hoo!. Least I'll recognise the signs of failing bearings if her bike has anything more than new gears producing dirty oil. They have to get pretty dire before they'll seize. Anyways, I hope it'll be the last for quite sometime before anymore rebuilds as I took more time & care this time around.
With that Torque Driver I can't imagine what context the blue "power band" would be useful at all. Maybe overtaking at speed : twist & it'll seem like it's dropping a gear??? The green power band is what is on the old OEM torque pulley or contra pulley.
If we can get a ride at the 6-Hour, so far, it looks like we'd choose Shel's bike for the race because hers should have the better coasting ability. Her rear wheel has bucket loads less drag than mine. All I can imagine is that maybe it's from the wheel bearing....it's certainly not the brake shoes. We'll be checking out eachother's bikes at the next Track Night to see what the ride quality is like.
Rob