Timing Gear set

[Ray Sandoz]

Does anyone have any experience with timing gears rather than a chain? Asking for a 2000 V11 sport. 

[docc]

This good fellow looks to have some experience . . .

 

[Weegie]

I have Joe's gears in a Sporti 1100, LM 1000 engine and in a HiCam. The HiCam engine currently has issues totally unrelated to the gearset at the moment.

I know of a few others who have them installed too, and never heard anything but positive things said.

Apart from the cost, Joe's gears are more expensive than a lot want to pay.

IMHO Joe's gears are the only viable alternative to chain sets, and after emailing him a lot over the years I can personally vouch for him

Anyway this might also help if you want to enquire

https://woodburymotomedia.com/moto-guzzi-timing-gears-by-joe-caruso/

John

[pete roper]

Don't be tempted by any of the alloy or alloy/steel composite sets available. They're all garbage despite what their fanboys will try to tell you.

[gstallons]

When did you EVER regret buying the best ?

 I heard a Pete Jackson gear drive in a small block , if they sound like them , they are Bad To the Bone !

[Lucky Phil]

2 hours ago, Weegie said:

I have Joe's gears in a Sporti 1100, LM 1000 engine and in a HiCam. The HiCam engine currently has issues totally unrelated to the gearset at the moment.

I know of a few others who have them installed too, and never heard anything but positive things said.

Apart from the cost, Joe's gears are more expensive than a lot want to pay.

IMHO Joe's gears are the only viable alternative to chain sets, and after emailing him a lot over the years I can personally vouch for him

Anyway this might also help if you want to enquire

https://woodburymotomedia.com/moto-guzzi-timing-gears-by-joe-caruso/

John

Yes I'll certainly back you up John on the quality of Joes gears and his commitment to his customers. So rare to find these things these days. having said that there's not a lot to complain about with regards to the chain drive its more a matter of what your feelings are with regards to engineering elegance.

Ciao  

[Weegie]

Could not agree more with both Lucky Phil and Pete Roper's posts

Although Joe and me often correspond (got a mail this morning from him) I have no skin in the game whatsoever.

Steel is the only way to go for material, Pete's seen countless wrecked engines with alloy gears and I've had a few acquaintences over the years send me photos of their personal horror stories.

I installed gears as I preferred the simplicity of design (although designing a gear set is a far from simple process), it was something less to think about, no lash, no adjuster to check etc:

Standard setup works very well there is no denying that, so in the end you pays your money and takes your choice

[pete roper]

More crappy gears by -convertpervert-

More crappy gears by -convertpervert-

More crappy gears by -convertpervert-

image by -convertpervert-

from Joe's munt pile.

image by -convertpervert-

image by -convertpervert-

Bad gears by -convertpervert-

 

broken gears8 by -convertpervert-

 

Ago gears2 by -convertpervert-

timinggears1_sm_sm by -convertpervert-

broken gears 7 by -convertpervert-

broken gears6 by -convertpervert-

broken gears5 by -convertpervert-

broken gears4 by -convertpervert-

broken gears3 by -convertpervert-

and some of the results.

broken gears9 by -convertpervert-

image by -convertpervert-

image by -convertpervert-

Alu G 005 by -convertpervert-

Yeah, I've got a load more. I'm not willing to argue the point with anyone, there is no point.

sorry for not cutting off the extraneous bits of the photo links, I can't be arsed.

 

[Chuck]

That is fairly compelling evidence.. (shrug)

[80CX100]

     Well if a picture is worth a thousand words, there's a gazillion reasons NOT to install timing gears. 

     I don't think verbal restraint is one of Pete's endearing qualities,lol ;~)

     I always wondered what timing gear carnage would look like, now I know.

     Tks for sharing

     Kelly

[docc]

1 hour ago, 80CX100 said:

     Well if a picture is worth a thousand words, there's a gazillion reasons NOT to install timing gears. 

     I don't think verbal restraint is one of Pete's endearing qualities,lol ;~)

     I always wondered what timing gear carnage would look like, now I know.

     Tks for sharing

     Kelly

Only the aluminum timing gears are a bad idea, yes?

[80CX100]

Hey Docc,    You're right I should have added the qualifier, " not to install poor quality timing gears."   

    Iirc I think our bike engines evolved, from a design originally based around a good set of timing gears, and do well with a good quality refit.

    Quality comes at a price;  I've never looked hard at them, but my impression is good timing gears are either rare or expensive.

     I'm not into rare and expensive, so I cheaped out on my bike and cut my own timing chain from Mercebes Benz stock, partly due to ease of sourcing in Canada.

     fwiw ymmv

     Kelly

     

[GuzziMoto]

2 hours ago, docc said:

Only the aluminum timing gears are a bad idea, yes?

Yes, mainly the aluminum gear sets are bad.

There may be a bad set of steel gears, but I don't know of them.

The steel gears Joe does are art, and work brilliantly. 

[pete roper]

Way back in the mists of time you used to be able to get helically cut steel gears that fitted the motors with the oil pump with roller bearings in and a (?) straight shaft but these were unobtanium by the 1990's as far as I know. The earlier 700, 750 and early Eldorados also used gears but the oil pump gear for these had a (?) tapered shaft and would not fit the later oil pumps.

Now from memory the story with these, (Early type, not the ones available for later bikes.) gears was that they were cast steel of some sort and quite high carbon. This made them very tough but unfortunately also frangible. They were fine if you used them in a standard motor with the 'Lawnmower' cam, small valves and teeny-weeny 29 or 30mm VHB carbs but if you tried to 'Hop the motor up' in any way they were prone to shattering the cam gear. 
 

I had a set of the steel 'Factory' gears available through the aftermarket in my SP 1000 that over some 20+ years morphed into my little short stroke hot-rod. Being helically cut as well as being vernierable it was possible to shim the cam gear for incredible precision for cam timing which was a bit of fun back in the day, especially with a couple of the cams I ran back then! By the time I'd finished with it it was producing close to the 'Mythical' 100 hp/litre but I had to rev it so hard that it's oil pump would cavitate and big end shells were limited life items! The gears never gave me a moment of issue and when I wrecked the motor out in about 2008 I gave them to another bloke to use in his post-Classic racer where, I assume, they are still doing stirling service.

That type of gear though are long, long gone. Nowadays the choice is chain or Joe's gears. Unless you want to play 'Timing chest lotto' with any of the execrable aluminium or alloy/steel composite sets.

[Lucky Phil]

9 hours ago, 80CX100 said:

     Well if a picture is worth a thousand words, there's a gazillion reasons NOT to install timing gears. 

     I don't think verbal restraint is one of Pete's endearing qualities,lol ;~)

     I always wondered what timing gear carnage would look like, now I know.

     Tks for sharing

     Kelly

Really? OK, lets hear em.

Ciao