Picked her up from Baxter's yesterday......

Txclassic said:

Congrats Flip on the successful upgrade!! Sounds like a top notch dealer that pays attention to details. Unfortunately, 950 miles one way is farther than I care to go.

Triumph backed my repair - - even though the dealer took 4 attempts and nine months to get it fixed. For that, I give Triumph credit for standing behind their product.

Last week, I put 600 miles on my ride and am pleased to say I think my dealer finally got it right! In the last 20 miles, I finally mustered the courage to give it a full throttle takeoff up through 3rd hear. Tranny clicked in place - - and STAYED in gear!! Woo hoo! Hit 112 mph before running out of 3rd gear.

The ultimate solution ended up with a complete tranny replacement. Apparently, another rocket was scheduled for the upgrade kit when it got totalled in a crash. Dealer had his upgrade kit already in stock, so he used the tranny components for my bike instead.

For the first time in almost a year, I put my feet up on the pegs and enjoyed the ride. Man, it's good to be back in the saddle again. I know you feel the same about your ride also.

I did have to tighten the clutch cable about 1/2 turn. This made a big improvement in shift smoothness and ability to find neutral. I suspect it wasn't full disengaging before the adjustment.

Click to expand...

Hell, it's only another 300 miles farther than I go. I do 650 one way. It's a long commute, that's all.

I thought of you for an instant but I just thought 'what the hell' and wound it to 6 and when the needle hit 6, I eased on the clutch just a tad and banged 3rd. I never left off the twistgrip. I figured if I blew it up I'd roll it back to the shop and come back again in a month.

Somehow, I don't think that's gonna happen

I still can't get over how it shifts. I was so used to the clunky Beemer like shifts even when the bike was new. It got real bad with the rubber shifter but I was used to the clunky shift by then.

Couple other things I need to throw in that I remember as I revisit this thread......I have trouble remembering everything...an age related scenario I believe.....

One, Gus told me that any 85-90 or 90 weight SYNTHETIC gear oil is just fine for the final drive. He uses Mobil 1 synthetic gear lube, not the Triumph stuff. Secondly, I told him up front that I didn't use the Mobil 4T Racing that Triumph recommends, rather I use Amsoil 20-50 Synthetic. He told me that's fine. In fact, any full synthetic 20-50 or 20-40 is fine. He don't recommend any 15-40 full synthetic whether it has a JASO-MA rating or not. He said that in the summer, the 15-40 oil is gonna get past the rings and burn. He also don't like the 10K change interval. He said it's good with Triumph but not with him. I concur with that. I'm a 5K changer myself. Finally, he said he uses Zerex antifreeze. The stuff from Murray's. He said, so long as it's approved for aluminum engines, it's just fine. No additive either. We discussed that. I'm a wet linered engine needs DCA4 guy. He told me there isn't enough compression to have a need for a liner additive like DCA4 to prevent impingement.

With that in mind, I'm going to start using 7th Gear 20-50 Synthetic JASO-MA oil in the crankcase and 7th Gear 85-90 GL4 synthetic hypoid in the final drive.

I like hearing this stuff from an actual Triumph Techinician, especially one who just rebuilt my engine....

Flip and Txclassic , Glad to here you both have your Rockets back in fine running order for the start of the ridding season. For me I'm not sure which would be worse, a bike i couldn't ride or somebody else working on it. Probably a bike I couldn't ride. I'm just glad my dealer's not so far away.

I know that not everyone came make the trip to Baxter's but if you have the opportunity I highly recommend it. It really is more of a destination type place versus just a simple dealership. His main business is vintage British bikes and you can spend days just going through all of that (and I have ).

Keep in mind that the third weekend in August is Randy's "Open House" motorcycle rally. It is a hoot, and gets bigger every year. I've been going to it for probably the last 25 years. A lot of people from R3Owners.net show up for this one.

For those of you that are too far away from Baxter's to go there for service don't loose heart. Triumph has regional service managers that are trying to get all dealers to the same level of service. They have a tech line and trouble shooters and offer schools for the dealership techs. It takes time, but they are making headway. Hopefully this will be the standard for all dealers.

Besides.............Tomo didn't tell you the Marne Tavern is a place of ambience.....

this is the kind of encouraging information that i was hoping to hear about the triumph experience. i was sorta thinking that i may have bought into a morphodyte sort of motorcycle, being that it's so much of a "one off" sort of bike, but with triumph and the dealer in iowa taking care of business, that's almost unheard of in today's world. thanks for posting this thread and how your bike was repaired, and especially the maintenance tips that the mechanic gave to you.

Great news flip
Good ole Gus he does it again..he's the man

Ray

Baxter Cycle

It's good to hear of goood experiences at my local dealer. I consider myself very fortunate to be eight miles from this fine dealership. I can testify to the character and person of Randy Baxter, because I've known him for over forty years. I've ground cranks for Randy and bores cylinders for him and he's always been great to deal with on both sides of the customer line. I'd encourage all to come to what we call Baxter Day's in August for a great time visiting with other cyclists and great displays of British and other iron. Ride on Flipmeister!!!

..you guys do realize this thread is over two years old..didn't I read that Gus was sick a while back?..hopefully Baxters is still the same upstanding place it was then..

Baxters

Yes, Gus WAS sick but he's back. He made an amazing recovery and I just saw him and talked to him briefly last weekend at the open house there 05/07/2011. So it's all good, even if it is old. Marty I guess the joke's on me.