Granny gear or overdrive gear for 449/511. Brainstorm thread

You would mess up the locations of the shift forks and the transmission would not shift.

Hmmmmmmm...... intuitively, that doesn't seem to make sense, but it I doubt I have all the facts (or even most the facts).

Certain gears in the transmission have an area that the shift fork rides in. If you start moving those down the shaft they will no longer line up on the shift drum. Even if you made a new shift drum it wouldn't work. You would have to re-engineer the whole gear sets to make your idea work. You would have to relocate the dogs and gear wheels on the gears when you moved them. Take a transmission apart and you will see what I am talking about.

Damn, damn, damn. Guess I will just have to upgrade to a KTooM with a WR trans in a couple years.

I'M NOT taking a transmission apart! I was one of those kids who couldn't even build models. When I got done there were extra parts and glue all over the thing so that the decals wouldn't say in place. Only thing they were good for was blasting with fire crackers.

Ohhhh Kaaayyy. Fine, now I have most the facts.
Seems like somethin' a nice sharp hacksaw and a stack of washers might fix.
"Certain gears in the transmission have an area that the shift fork rides in." = hacksaw
"You would have to relocate the dogs and gear wheels on the gears when you moved them." = stack-O-washers.

Not necessarily. The 6 speed Husqvarna transmission is hybrid TC 5 speed with two 4th gear sets. 2nd gear set are blind gear sets with no lock rings. One of 6th is a blind gear, the other has a set of locks. I remember that one of these made no difference, I will have to check my gear set again.

$1600 is a good price. I like the standard BMW transmission, it is so much better than the 6 speed, plenty wide enough for me.

I stumbled on this post by accident, intriguing!!

Run your standard 14t front sprocket. Then.....

Why don't you run two sprockets on the back wheel a 54t bolted on top of a 46t ( longer bolts at the wheel hub, both sprockets could even be welded together, minimize fumbling and trying to realign)

Set your chain to suit the smaller sprocket with a short link of chain and 2nd master link that then allows extra length to suit the larger sprocket.

When you require to change ratio, it's a simple unbolt wheel and flip / swap sprockets around, add the extra chain links and voila!!!
my timer says 13 minutes, that's in my workshop, with relevant tools laid out (however, no weather conditions to deal with) might take a little longer if you don't have the luxury of a stand, but then with practice, might be able to shave some time off it.

You didn't say if you needed this function to "roll over" mid race, with-out stopping, if that's the case, surely some sort of de-railer (similar to push bike) set -up, would be cheaper to engineer than $10K

This problem has probably already been solved, and I'm just talking out of my arse?

but the title of the post did say "brainstorm"

http://dualratiosprockets.com/
I found these a while back but they don't make them for dual sports. Maybe we should be bugging these guys to make one!

Why not find out who built the oem gears in Italy and have them produce a wider ratio set? Years ago, a guy in my town figured out who forged the stock air-cooled VW crankshaft in Europe and had them build him a run with a longer stroke. It's really tough to build dirtbike stuff in the USA cuz there is no cottage industry already set up to make small runs of parts for dirt bikes, etc. Not so in Europe, or Italy in particular. Italy has companies galore that are just waiting to make moped/motorcycle/ kart racing chassis and engine parts, castings, etc. for companies like TM, Parilla, Ducati, Laverda, Aprilia, Moto Guzzi, CRG, Cagiva, etc. They wouldn't look at making a smaller run of gear sets as any big deal like an American company would. I mean, how many gears does TM order to make their small runs of off-road bikes?

http://www.rally-raidproducts.co.uk/ccm-gp450-bmw-450x-wide-ratio-gearbox
http://www.cafehusky.com/threads/449-overdrive.31853/

Both links are dead. The wide ratio G450X gear set is still available from Nova Racing. Has anybody installed it on a 449/511? Is it possible?

Tinken doesn't visit the forum any longer and closed a lot of threads with info of his. He did end up fitting a complete G450X gear and shift fork set to his 511 and liked the results.
Something I've considered doing to my own 449 but haven't found a good used BMW as yet.

Thanks! I assumed the original G450X and the 449/511 gearboxes are about the same ratio (despite having 5 resp. 6 gears) and only the Nova box has a wider ratio. Heard from Nova in the meantime that their 450 gear box is currently not available and got no further infos as to if and when it will be available again.

My current thinking is that the 449 gearbox ratio is probably not much different from a normal street bike (if my calculations are correct) and that I if I choose sprockets that make it run comfortably at 100 or even 120 km/h on the highway it should still work well on easy tracks in the back country. I don't plan to climb hills, jump over trees or cross too many rivers so maybe that'll work out just fine.

The G450X and Husqvarna TE/SMR 449-511 ratios are quite different, but also not likely to be available.
The standard TE449 gearing will let you do 100km/h safely and still be able to do light trail riding. (and tricky stuff with some clutch skills)
I persisted with the 15/50 ratio until the chain wore out at 110hrs or so, then went to a more suitable 14/51 for the single tracks and hills we do.
This site is a handy resource for working out what ratios to run.
http://www.gearingcommander.com/