Gear Drive for Quota

[Twinsport]

Can anyone recommend which gear-drive works best on my 2000 quota 1100es. Straight, helical aluminum steel?

[john zibell]

Can anyone recommend which gear-drive works best on my 2000 quota 1100es. Straight, helical aluminum steel?

Gear drive for what? If you are talking about replacing the timing chain, I wouldn't recommend it. Instead I'd just get a new chain and a good blade style tensioner like this one http://www.mgcycle.com/product_info.php?products_id=347 It is hard to get quality gears. The best gear set (steel) is made by a gentleman in the UK and his name escapes me right now. You could search this forum and possible find him. If I remember correctly, that block has to be ground to accept gears, but I could be mistaken. You would probably only notice a difference in performance in racing applications between the chain and a gear set, for street riding the chain is just fine.

[Chuck in Indiana]

Pete will be along shortly to tell you why you shouldn't use gears. It'll probably be pretty colorful, including making your willy shrivel, etc.. but based in the fact that he's seen *many* sets of gears go bad with the predictable results for your engine. I've personally seen one set in a Centauro that were toast at about 18K miles.

[Old Jock]

Pete can talk for himself for sure, but as I understand it he is not against all gears just the Aluminum sets.

I have a set of steel ones in my LM 1000. I would not even think about putting in Al gears, the thing is some fit and forget and have had many 1000s of miles. A guy on WG states he did 100.000 on a set. Others though go bad in short order and create havoc and mayhem inside the engine. The damage they have the propensity to do is just not worth the risk IMHO.

The guy who makes the steel gears is Joe Caruso. His are straight cut and he supplies worldwide including some who tune their engines within an inch of its life. I have never heard a bad thing said about Joe's gears and a lot of good things. I mail Joe regularly about various things Guzzi related he is a good guy. That said I make no money and have no business affiliation with him of any kind.

His gears are a lot more expensive than most are prepared to pay. This is due to limited production runs and Joe does not make much of anything from getting them made. But your looking at £400 absolute minimum maybe £500 a set. There may also be a wait involved as he gets them made for friends and long standing clients or as he needs.

For a proper estimate you'd need to contact him directly, if you PM me I'll give you his email, but I thought it only fair to mention the cost implication so as not to disappoint.

If it's too costly for your budget then the next best thing would be a new chain and Stuchi type tensioner.

John