This trans does have a detent but it’s on the inside of the transmission where the shift arm/fork are. Evidently it didn’t work as planned or it’s just worn out. I have tried different strength springs with no real luck. I generally just leave it in drive and try not to get stuck or find my self short of room to turn around. There are no parts for these and one gear here or there is way to expensive. When it does die I will be getting an RPM box as well.

Yeah I did away with the neutral safety switch so it will start on gear. I was just saying if I removed the cables and went for a ride and it pops out of gear I am not able to get out and put it back into gear. It really sounds like I will just have to make my shifter latch regardless.

When I had my RPM box rebuilt by Dan years ago he was aware that I was having issues with the box popping out of gear and he made to changes to help alleviate the issue. When I installed the box the prior single cable shifter system wasn’t enough to engage the system, the cable would just bend and the shift arm would smile and resist. I realize that I had many options regarding correcting this but being that the bug wasn’t hurting for power and I wasn’t concerned about adding weight, a push pull selector was fabricated with heavy stock I had laying around and installed.
Yes, I did put that puppy in gear with channel locks and take it for a ride after the 1st shifter wouldn’t work and prior to the new system, I just couldn’t wait, had to get a “fix” and it did pop out of gear, albeit less than before rebuilding, I thought the McMaster heavy cable would be enough to shift and keep her in gear, it was not and as noted in prior postings and I added the lock. I’ve seen locks consisting of just a strap slipped over the lever and they seemed to work well too.

The Briggs shifter is just a piece of bar stock aluminum on a shoulder bolt. The stop just swings over on hose clamps. Does not pop out of gear when the stop is not used. Has pretty decent detents in trans. Single cable, looks like about a 10-32 thread. Looks like the cable that comes with an old B&M auto shifter.

I finally had a couple minutes to spare today between waiting for parts for everyone elses junk, so i decided to tackle my shifter. Its been froze in the 'up' position as long as i have owned this machine. Here is how i got everything freed up.

This shifter shaft is not meant to be tore apart. There is a small 2mm pin that keeps the shaft from spinning and only allows the shifter to move so far. Brute force was the solution for this, i screwed a nut on flush with the top of the shaft and gave it a few good whacks and it sheered the pin and drove the shaft out the bottom. After it was apart i cleaned the rust and burrs off of everything so it would move freely like it was supposed to. Now for a replacement pin i resorted to my stash of small parts and pieces from my RC car days. There was a 2x12mm pin i had from some old car that turned out to be the perfect diameter. Its a little long, but once this is a proven repair and im certain that it doesnt need to come apart again i will probably trim it off. I still need to get a replacement seal, it measures out to 10x16x4.5 if anyone ever needs one, its probably the same as a motorcycle clutch arm pivot. If i look in my hoard i may even have one on the shelf, otherwise im going to order one from Feebay and see how that works. I would love to find a NOS shift boot as mine is in pretty rough shape, i may be searching a while for that piece. For now its just smeared with some black RTV, better than nothing.

While i was in there, i also tried drilling an extra lock position for FWD gear as CO suggested. There is not enough room to drill a second hole for the shifter to lock without creating one large hole. So to do this, i had to fill the stock neutral lock hole before i could make a forward lock hole. I took it for a ride this afternoon and this does seem to fix my jumping out of gear issue. Going to go camping this weekend so i will really get to put it to the test. Once its proven ill show how i did it, all in all between freeing up the shifter and drilling the new hole i have about an hour into it. Pretty straightforward to do if you think about it a bit.

Baahahahaha good one.
I never thought about that when I took one of mine apart.
I F'd around for hours.

As for you other guys not using the stock shifter for your transmissions that pop out of gear, I have a question. Why don't you guys use a style of shifter that was on my dad's 1969 396 chevelle ss that he had back in the 70's when I was a kid ?? It had a 4 speed Muncie in it. The shifter had a "T" handle on it for when you wanted to put it into reverse. This T lockout handle prevented you from nailing reverse by accident. Below is a random pic of what I am talking about. It's that little "T" in front of the main stick.
We could do similar here but it would hold your transmission in gear by locking your shifter in the foreword and may be even reverse position. Just a thought.
CO

What was your solution to get it apart? I have a couple spare shifters from my fl350 days so I wasn't too afraid to mess it up.

you want to be carful locking the tranny with the shifter vs the internal detents, if the shift fork is doing all the holding it may wear it out,

Very valid point.



Lube, fooling around, a sharpened set of needle nose vise grips and blind luck it came loose.
I was actually almost ready to grind out around the pin and grab it with the needle nose.
Never even thought about getting violent even though that is my trade a lot of the time.
CO

That makes sense. I guess I should do a little more work to see if it's the shifter causing it to jump out of gear or somthing internal in the gearbox.

Makes sense, my “holder” is only the safety. It stays in gear without issue and there is play between the shifter and holder but for those times you land hard or loose and gain traction and she tries to pop out of gear, the in car shifter handle cannot move. To be honest, I think I check it twice a minute on average while driving to ensure it’s still in the forward position.

I think the Briggs is the same, just a safety so it doesn't get bumped by the driver while racing.

Now that I finally have a bit of seat time on this setup, there are a few things that worked exactly as planned, and a few things I'm going to have to change.

First off, the popping out of gear issue is solved. I think my problem was the stock cables were unsupported and stretched a little further than they should have been, so everytime I'd hit a bump it would pull itself out of gear. I made the stock shifter latch in gear as a safety, but there is no tension on the cables, so it's not holding it in gear just not allowing the shifter to pull it out of gear.

This last week at St. Anthony dunes, I ran 40 gallons of gas through this pilot. One thing I need to work on is getting the clutching dialed in. It seems to always be in too high of a gear. I am going to call the company that sold me the driven clutch on Monday and see what they recommend I change. I think I'm going to end up needing a different helix angle. This brings me to my next issue. To remove the driven clutch I have to take the entire Engine and transmission out of the frame. I'm trying to decide on the best way to make part of the rear frame removable and bolt in. I am looking for a weld in piece that works kinda like the factory roll cage so I can just unbolt the section I need, remove and tune the clutch, and bolt it all back together. Any thoughts on where to find somthing like this? Or is it a bad idea to make this section of frame removable.

And finally the rear brakes absolutely suck. I bought a used rhino caliper and used the stock brake pads that were with it, and they were cooked after 1 hard ride. I'm hoping where I went wrong was using the old pads that were on the caliper. Ordered a set of EBC carbon pads, will see if a good set of pads does the trick.

Hey Matty,just a few ol quick FL800 pics I found on my PC for ya.I'll take some more diff angle ones later on when I can.

That is exactly what i want to do, thanks Baz. That will make servicing the clutch so much easier.

Found some tubing couplers at kartek, that may be the way to go if I can get the right size.

Took these pics this arvo,before going back to work Matty.
The OEM Pilot joiners are easy to replicate,and remember to include the small tube anti-crush tubes internally for the bolts.
Also remember to orientate your joiners so that they allow the member to come-away so long as they are in sync.
This will avoid you getting your Knickers in a Twist!

last pic.

Made a couple more changes to the clutching on the pilot today, and I cant believe the difference that it made. From the first ride I took with the new gearbox setup the pilot just didnt seem as quick as it used to be. The power was there, but it just didnt feel quite right. So after talking with the guys at Venom Products (place I purchased the driven clutch) I pulled the primary to see what the setup was. Like I thought, the clutch I was running was stock for 99 Summit X 670 sled. I had a spare clutch I pulled off of a 98 Summit X 670 that was long tracked by someone and it was setup with a heavier spring and heavier pins in the rollers. Evidently that's just what I needed because this thing pulls like a monster now, the front end is awful light . It pulls right to 76-7800 and maxes out at 8000. Going to leave it here for now and do some more reading on tuning the Skidoo TRA clutch, I must be awful close to what it wants.

I also started on making my frame section removable. Got everything cut out and fitted, just need to weld it up in the morning. Welding tubing is no fun.

Before you go crazy with the welding you better verify the orientation of the cam locks.
Just one small tac on each and then try to take it off.
Just my opinion.
CO

Also thinking about picking up a set of these cheap tires for the front. As you guys can probably tell, my holeshots are shot. The pilot turns bad enough as it is, bald tires really don't help anything.

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre ... 2589997598

Think its worth the gamble? ~$32 per tire to my door vs ~$80 per tire for itp holeshot xcr's from rockymountainatv.com

Spent all my money on the RPM gearbox and here I wanna be cheap on tires . I have a pair of $15 china sunf front tires on an old tired warrior 350 that's my loner bike for friends. They seem to be holding up well but it doesnt get rode much.

Yes I was thinking the same thing. It wouldn't be cool if it was finish welded and non removable again.

Hey Nitro, late to the party as usual, but you look to be on the right track.

Careful with the cam locks as they might bind as you weld them especially with the three points. I made all three but haven’t used front mount. I still don’t think bazz has a bolt in it. I designed them like the stock Pilot roll bar attachments as they have some play Incase things shift when welding or after riding, relaxes with vibration.

From your pictures, it looks like your kind of high on the bottom mount. Can you still slip off the clutch with the cam lock? On mine I have the longest RPM input shaft to accommodate the outboard brace. So you might be able to slip it out with a shorter input shaft. On mine I cut out the battery brace and made the cut just below the front a-arm mount. Then that mount/diagonal tube welds to the back of one of the pilot roll bar attachment points. Even this low it’s pretty close as the clutch slides by.

On clutching, the big bore twins like the motor (( Internal Combustion Engine ? )) loaded, heavy weights. It a balancing act between heavy weights and enough secondary spring to counter that weight. Get the heaviest secondary spring and keep it in, as that controls belt slip, then fine tune with the helix. You want a steep helix to get in the highest gear but that steep helix transfers less side load from the seconded spring. So I have a flatter helix then I would like but can’t keep belt temps under control with a steep one. Basically I start with the secondary spring then tune with the heaviest primary weights/ helix/ primary spring while getting belt life.

Good luck
Ak

Thanks for the input, i was hoping you would chime in eventually. Your FL800 pilot was kinda the inspiration throughout my pilot sled swap endeavors.

The roll bar pieces that i bought don't actually lock together, they just sit on top of each other so it comes on and off fairly easy with no bind. My input shaft is short enough that i can get the clutch off with the cutting that i did. If i had to order the gearbox again, i definitely would have had a longer input shaft installed to do the outboard bearing support much like you did. i was thinking about seeing if Dan would make me a longer input shaft so if i ever have to take the box apart in the future i can upgrade my bearing supports even more.

I think i finally got the clutching figured out, or at least very close. Ive got heavier weights in the primary and a stiffer spring and it will bite and take off like i wanted it to. It was pretty lazy with the lighter stock spring and weights. The starting setup for the secondary from the guys at Venom is a 38 / 42 straight helix with a 140-240 red/black spring. Im quite happy with how it is shifting out at the moment and my belt doesnt seem to get very hot, so i will run with it like this for a while.


I pulled the pilot out of the shop today to get my moms car up on the lift, so i had to take it for a spin. Didnt realize she was filming or i would have tried to get a better video. at least it wheelies again ;)