The Old Rat-a-tat-tat

[Rasputin]

Well now the the 81LH with the 79SF motor is starting and running good it was time to try some things out.
I made a short vid to show what the noise is and how bad it sounds.
You will see that I have it running, then I slip it into first gear and you will notice the rear wheel turn.
There is a dragging brake noise as well, but I have not gotten to the brakes as of yet.
I then switch it up to second gear, the rear wheel virtually stops turning and the noise is almost instant.
I then shift it down and back up but you get the idea.
The old second gear fix is upon me, I do believe.
The way it shifts I think there is a good possibility of a bent shifter fork as well.
If it were not for this site the old Hillbilly's bike would be in many parts by now.
My thanks to all who have helped me so far and those that will in the future.
For those that do not know click on the pic for the video.

[DGXSER]

Wow, those gears must really be toast to jump with no real load on it. Be interesting to see what they look like when you pull them out.

At least the bike is torn down pretty far so if you choose to flip it, not to much more to do. I have a spare 2nd gear shift fork, but doubt that will be the one you need.

Always something else to be done to them.

[Rasputin]

You can well imagine how my hopes were dashed when I heard that sound. I have parts from the 78E that should fit to fix it up. I will take some pics of them when I get them out. The $300 I paid for the bike is still not too bad as I only have new carb boots, pilot and main jets into it so far. The 78E parts bike I bought cost me that too but it has saved me way more than that and helped quite a few others too.

[DGXSER]

Heck, my first 81 special cost me $1k and it had the same issue, not nearly as bad, but I still wound up doing the dremel fix on it. This one I have now I paid about the same as you did for. Let's just say I have allot more in it than you have so far. Adn the dremel fix cost less than $50 to do.

And the shift forks and gears from your 78, as you know, are interchangable. I would probably pull the 78 stuff out first, dremel the gears from it, and then pull the 79 engine apart.

[Rasputin]

Hey all. I just wanted to post some pics to show how I flipped my 81LH. I had some sand bags laying around and no help so I tried this.

First I laid out some bags like so.



Tipped the bike over to see how it lined up.



When I got it to this point I knew this was not about to work.



Tipped her back on her feet and laid the sand bags out like this.



Got it to this point and decided I needed to lower the bars and set a ranp and sand bag up for the frame to land on.



Now it looked like this.



This is what it looked like after I flipped it. The next two pics show it landed. I was working alone so I could not take pics of me flipping the bike. I was kind of busy to be taking pics...lol.





Here is what I was looking at. I did not have exhaust on the one I tore apart earlier so I did not remove them before. Way too easy to remove them in this position...lol.



Another shot of why the stock exhaust had to go.



With the exhaust removed.



This oil pan bolt was a bear to remove, very tight in there.



Couple of pics of the dogs on the gears. Best I can do till I get them pulled out.





Here is where I left it for tonight. Time for tranny work another day.

[DGXSER]

Nicely done! Looks like a PO was a real corner carver, or is it just me that the exhaust looks have ground up from rubbing road?

[Rasputin]

I think he did the corner too fast on the right hand pipe and put her down. There are a series of dents along it. Weird thing is the black chrome was not that badly scratched where the dents were. Over all the pipes need something cause they look terrible. I have to check with the guys who do ceramic coatings to see what they can coat over. Might have to pull the dents and Use brass filler or something to make em look straight again.

[Rasputin]

the old gears

Well I got the tranny apart last night. Did the dremel thing to gears I already had.
I found that use of a Black Sharpie to color in the shiny areas where I was dremeling sure helped me to see where I had cut and where it still needed it.
The Sharpie worked great for seeing how much I was back cutting the countershaft 2nd gear and the countershaft 3rd gear.
I simply swapped them out and re-installed. The shift fork was badly worn, probably from being held in to gear by the PO.
The countershaft 1st gear looked like it was brand new and showed very little wear.
The countershaft 4th gear pinion did have some wear so I swapped it out as well. No sense in not doing em all, eh!
I also did the washer swap while I was in there
The whole thing only took a few hours and beers.
The gears that were in it are probably too far gone to do the fix to.
I used a black sharpie to black out some of the shiny stuff so the wear would highlight better for pics.
I am not a whiz at taking pics, but here are some of the gears I took out.

Countershaft 5th gear pinion shots







The shift fork



The countershaft 4th gear pinion

[DGXSER]

those are definitly some VERY worn gears. I certainly would rather use the other gears as well. I'd replace that shift fork also. Looks alot like what I found when I tore into Banshee. But since I did not have spare gears, I ground the ones I had. Been working well so far.

[Rasputin]

That is the beauty part of having a parts bike. The shift fork was changed out as well. The bike is back together now. Much thanks to everyone who has contributed info to the second gear fix. The fix procedure from the forum as well as reading many of the posts over the years certainly gave me the confidence to try it. I was amazed at how easy everything went.