3rd gear whinning

[Rane850]

In autumn I made DB killers to my exhausts and started to ride without earplugs, this seemed to be expensive descision!
I was really unhappy for 3rd gear terrible whinning noise, it felt to my ears like fire truck. So I took engine down end replaced both 3rd gears, you can see pics of these gears in http://www.kuvaboxi.fi/julkinen/2brst+r ... a-trx.html
3rd gears are those that are in middle of those shafts.
it is clearly visible that output shaft gear has pitting in it...
but next summer i can really enjoy also 3rd gear

[haggisbash]

How many kilometres had the your TRX done? Did you remove the head and barrels or leave them in place and just split the cases? Just curious as my third gear makes some noise but I dont believe it is worth replacing it just yet

[G Beale]

Mine also whines. Nothing really bad just louder than the others. I would compare the noise to an electric milk float (remember those ?) when it pulls away from stand still. I've done roughly 1K on the bike which is now showing 16K. Maybe I should check the oil ?

[haggisbash]

I would be checking the oil for sure in case you have one of the TRX's that likes to use a bit! I don't think it will make much difference to the 3rd gear noise though (unless of course you have very little oil left). A 20/50 weight oil seems to quiet the gear noise a little but is not suitable for the ambient temp here in Southern NZ (takes too long to warm up and decreases the performance slightly in my experience). Epro exhaust, FCR's, ramair filter and earplugs work well for rattly engines and 3rd gear noises

[Rane850]

I dont know exact kilometres since it is second hand unit and those germans are very keen on "updating" speedos, any way i think under 30tkm. but I have had other TRX too, it had 36tkm when I bought it and 76tkm when i had to sell it, and it did not have any whinning sound.
Everything had to be stripped down since there are some casing bolt under cylinder barrels, only pistons and conrods and of course crank itself can be left on their places.

sofar it has cost around 800 euros.... ( but that is only one month cost for having horse and pony, which my wife has..)

[steve speed]

are you sure its pitting ? from the photos it looks like metal has been deposited on the teeth ,, perhaps it had a bearing failure before you got it ? on a good note the gear dogs look ok ie not rounded off , i wonder why it only pitted third gear and not the others ?

[cobbadiggabuddyblooo]

Found with my wife after the third year got a lot of whinning too.. OOOHHHH SORRY third Gear.. 97,000km of giving mine a good fist full when ever i can on the week ends and some weekdays(I'm not talking bout the wife now either ) as well as a fair bit of that 3 gear 60/50kmh commuting each day and still no real noise issue. Sounds like maybe as suggested some other initial damage floating around to cause the ongoing issues??

[G Beale]

Bit of a coincidence 3 replies to this already all with noisy 3rd gears ?

[cobbadiggabuddyblooo]

Maybe has something to do with the cold,wet weather instead of our 20/31 degrees for 10 months of the year here in sunny Queensland..

[Rane850]

or I have in mind that previous owener has enjoyed too much of low end torque sinc it starts to pull under 50 kmh with 3 rd gear and same gear goes up to 130 kmh. kind a automatic transmission...

[cobbadiggabuddyblooo]

and thats what I've used so much of . Only put the fcr's and lowered gearing the last 5,000k's so now I'm using torque and h/p. Sure he didnt lower the gearing right down and use as a hot postie bike.. looks nice in blue the bike by the way..

[devlin]

Do you get the rear end chatter at the same time as the 3rd gear whine? That would be pretty bad if like in the other thread you hadn't left the garage yet! I am not sure a good fist full would fix any of that either, probably end up with spontaneous external combustion and detonation.

[steve speed]

had a ride on mine today and my 3rd gear whines a bit , but no more than the R1 did ,that used to sound like a touring car, perhaps its just that ratio makes a noise ?

[Mincehead]

To be honest those gear pinions don`t look too bad at all,no chipping or burring evident but yes,perhaps a little `pick-up` of a harder material on the faces of the teeth,or perhaps they were never manufactured/machined very well to start with.
As Steve Speed says,maybe a bearing had broken up at some time previous to the strip down and not enough care went into removing the debris.
Sometimes there are natural frequencies at play in gearboxes,third gear could indeed just reach such a frequency and the whining is a direct consequence of that.
Unless gearboxes offer too many false neutrals,clunk badly when changing gear or jump out of gear it`s often not worth worrying about them too much,costly business splitting crankcases for no good reason.
Perhaps a poll should be carried out by forum users to ascertain if third gear whining/gearbox noise is common to ALL TRX`s?
That way even high milage or abused/track used bikes will tell the story of `it makes a noise but it remains reliable`.

[cobbadiggabuddyblooo]

Why a poll? Why not a Pom or an Aussie. Be careful devlin as for giving the misses a fisting in the garage we'll get Killer started...