Factory Shift Pedal Re-Design

["Paul Wilson" <paulwilson@xxxxxxxxx>]

Fellow St'ers,

I don't recall having read a post on this exact issue but then again, I may
have been dozing off . . .

Whilst attending Americade a couple of weeks back  (great event, lousy
weather this year;  it rained 7 of the 9 days I was on the road),  I had the
shifter linkage rod snap in two while performing a downshift.  Fortunately,
I was only about 50 miles out of Lake George at the time and I was stuck in
third gear, so I was able to limp back to the rally site without too much
difficulty or punishment to the bike.

The next morning, I headed straight for the Triumph demo trailer where
Randy, a very helpful fellow I had met the previous day when test riding the
TT600, examined my broken linkage rod, disappeared for a moment into the
huge Triumph trailer, and emerged with a new-design shift pedal.  He stated
that Triumph had had problems with the aluminum shift linkage rod breaking,
had gone to a steel rod as a fix, but that these, too, had continued to
break.  As a result, Triumph had redesigned the shift pedal to eliminate the
linkage entirely, and this is what I now held in my hand.  I thanked him
profusely, dug a 10mm wrench from my tool kit and, in less than one minute,
had the new shift pedal installed on my ST.

The new pedal bolts directly onto the quadrant shaft and this one part
replaces the three of the original linkage.  What this does, of course (in
addition to eliminating the possibility of any future linkage rod breakage),
is remove all of the free-play that existed in the original 3-piece linkage
design.

The transformation was amazing!   Previously, like most other low mileage
owners (my ST had just 2,000 Km on the clock at the time), I had been
experiencing some difficulty in shifting gears, especially upshifting
between first and second and second and third.  This, I attributed to it
being a new bike and wasn't overly concerned.  However, as soon as I
installed the new shift pedal, my shifting problems immediately disappeared.
I also noted that it was a lot easier to find neutral when rolling to a
stop.  So, in my case, at least, my less-than-precise shifting difficulties
seemed to be more a result of the freeplay introduced through the original
shifter linkage rather than being simply symptomatic of a low-mileage bike.

Given the dramatic change I experienced, perhaps others of  you with
recalcitrant transmissions may want to consider this modification.  I'm a
big believer in simplicity of design and any time you can replace three
parts with one is a good thing, in my books.

The Triumph part number is:    Pedal, Gearchange, Assembly    T2080373

Regards,

Paul Wilson
Toronto,  Canada


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