GP shifting mod

[TodkaVonic]

My Guzzi is one up, three down. That's just the way the Italians did it in 1970. With very little effort I converted the Ducati to GP shifting: one up, four down. I rotated a single linkage 180 degrees. So simple. Enter the R18. I've been over it and over it and I just can't figure out a way to change the shifting pattern to GP. The linkage pathway is too tight. It goes over the frame then under the engine. Rotating that bit and extending the linkage isn't happening. The arm on the tranny itself has no room to be configured, easily, any other way. I'm stumped. It's not about blasting around a track or my toes dragging and being able to shift, no, it's about continuity. I'd like em all to shift the same dang way. If anyone, anyone! Even that YouTube guy, has any ideas, I'm all ears.


Nate

 

[Black Dog]

My 73 Triumph Bonneville is really screwed up, I have to ride it backwards to shift with my left foot. Anyone with a pre 1974 Sportster has the same problem.

 

[TodkaVonic]

It may not work but I'm formulating a plan. Changing things at the lever which ducks down under the engine cover is a nonstarter. It's not possible to re-orient that lever and modifying it won't yield any change in the direction of the rod it actuates. That rod, however, that may be the ticket. It connects to the shift arm at the transmission. In it's stock form, that rod recreates the clockwise or counterclockwise rotation of the axis of the shifter pedal. If I can re-orient a longer rod (150mm, right angle, welded reinforcement) and aim the arm to the tranny north (shorter, slightly bumped out), the result will be clockwise where stock was counterclockwise and vice versa. It's tight. I've ordered some bits and pieces. We'll see if this little endeavor bears any fruit. If not, I'm not burning any bridges and can return everything to stock.

/probably easier to revert the Ducati back to stock and then reconfigure the dang Guzzi

 

[TodkaVonic]

Just an update and maybe a note to the future should someone attempt this change: it can be done, but, as I was able to do it, it shouldn't be done.

The stock setup is direct and efficient. Like so much on our bike, it's exactly the way that it should be. So change, just for preference's sake, has to be at least as good as original or it's not worth doing. Tall order.

My solution was a shorter shift arm at the transmission directed upwards connected to a right angle shift linkage. This effectively flips the direction of rotation and gets around the underside of the motor.
However, as the roughly horizontal vector of the shift linkage is constrained by the engine, to get to the newly positioned shift arm, the linkage needs a tight bend resulting in considerable torque on the linkage. Think about pushing something away from you with your elbow vs pushing the same thing with your palm while your arm is bent at the elbow. Not as direct or efficient. There's probably a bunch of engineering nomenclature that I could use to describe the result, but suffice to say that it feels a bit sloppy. Squishy almost. And thoroughly unacceptable.

I could tinker some more but I'm not confident that I'd be happy with the result.