oh yes pictures of the shifter would be awesome....Ok Now as for the handel bars...does anyone know the diameter?

 

standard 7/8" stuff.

 

Thanks for the tip on the My Page thing. I posted some pictures there of me on the bike and of the shifter. So all you have to do is click on the camera at left.
I made a pretty simple shifter mechanism to reverse the direction of movement of the shifter shaft. Now from nuetral you have 1 down to reverse, and then all upwards with the toe to go up in the forward gears. Downward takes you back down. It is really smooth and natural feeling now. Before I was always jamming it down a gear when I really wanted to upshift. Kept thinking STUPID !! But anyway it works better for me. The brake peddal was simple to take off and bend inward a little. Now I have adequate foot room for my size 10's. My 6'5" son is coming over this weekend with his size 14's, can't wait to see this!!
I had to take 1/4" off of the thread end of the brake adjustment rod to move the brake lever inward as it moved more onto the thick rubber of the foot peg. If you try to totally remove the adjustment rod there is a roll pin holding the top of it. I just cut it off with an air cutoff tool without having to remove it totally from the bike.
As you can see from the going up photo this little bike hauls my 200 pounds around with ease. The down hill shot is holding itself with ease with the brakes. I have been fortunate that I did not have any of the brake dragging problems some others have had. I actually think they feel pretty good after being adjusted.
Hope these changes can help you all too.Happy Trails!!

 

That shifter - you're a genuis in my book. Excellent work! I could no sooner have designed that shifter than give birth to a wombat.

I am VERY interested - did you canibalize the old shifter to make this one, or start from scratch?

 

XO,
Had to use the piece of the old shifter that has the splined part that goes on the shifter shaft. I used a peg piece from an old harley shifter. I could make you one if you can furnish the piece for the shifter shaft and a peg. I only found one laying around. I might have another peg though. I made the whole thing as a unit so it could be bolted onto the bike with the existing peg bolts. Be happy to do it.

Just got to thinking. I can make the peg rom the rubber piece on the OEM shifter.

 

Great unbiased review. I am a big boy also, so this is good to know. I have exp. with the small chinquads and it sounds pretty much like when I opened ours. Good Read!!


BTW, I'm still looking for the d*mn Fly, I didn't get one!!!

 

Thanks for taking the time to do such a great job on your write-up. Based on your input and info from the other Tornado thread, I bought a HiBird 200 from Anam for my son and received it last Friday. I have it assembled and my son and I have ridden it a little bit this evening.

A few observations:

-MIA - 2X reflectors, 1X front tie rod nut and lock washer.

-The battery strap fits so loosely that I just won't use it.

-The kill switch needs to be reset by re-centering it and then pushing it in. Just centering it is not enough. I spent an hour chasing around for the source of my no-spark issue because of this.

-The steering alignment was far off (as was posted elsewhere) - easily corrected.

-The chain keeps tightening itself. In 1 hour I had to loosen it twice and it is tight again.

-The engine runs as sweet as others have reported - very nice.

The most troubling thing I've noticed is that the swing arm is off center about 1" to the right. It is clearly (visibly) not centered with the fenders and the rest of the bike and the chain has to deal with a major misalignment between the two sprockets. It is even obvious that the shock absorber is cocked. I can cure a little of this by adjusting the chain tensioners and cocking the rear axle to at least point at the countershaft sprocket. The chain still has to bend it's way between the sprockets. The swing arm is installed correctly and must simply be made wrong or the frame attach points are made wrong.

I am not real sure how to deal with this but I would like to hear from others to see if this is a common issue.

Thanks for all the great info. This is a great forum.

 

Herman,
The chain sprockets looked to be in alignment on mine, but after your post I went to check and I have some misalignment. Maybe a half inch. Checked the axle alignment with the front A arms and sure enough , it has been made a little longer on the left side to align the sprocket. This means the axle is a little cocked with the front end. Probably looks like it is crab walking from behind. I hate to follow a car that has that problem! It looks like the problem could be addressed by moving the sprocket a little to the left on the axle. Maybe a spacer would do it. I'm going to investigate this later this week. I have to say though that this tyhing handles really good even with the problem. If the shock weren't cocked a little as you pointed out, I never would have seen it.
Thanks for the heads up!


The kill switch thing about drove me nuts too !

 

Ok guys,
Found the answer to the enrichment adjustment screw. There is a tool sold by MAC tools. Surely there are other brands out there. It is for adjusting carbs on the average hot rod. It is a tube with a 45 degree angle at one end. On this end it has a small tube with a flat screw driver bit. It is connected via a flex shaft to a **** on the other end. It will fit only from the right hand side of the bike. But it is easy to see to slip it on the screw and once you turn it a little the tip will fall into the slot and you are ready to tune the carb. I had adjusted my needle to full rich and the bike was running great, but after tuning the screw it fires in a split second and throttles up instantly with no lag. Now on hills you can go as slow as you need and expect good response without lag when you need it. I was thinking of going to a smaller front sprocket for more hill climb power but now I am going to try this out for awhile.
Also tackled the rear axle to check alignment of the chain. This bike, and I suspect many more, has a small problem in the jig alignment on weldup. The swingarm on mine is actually about a half inch to the right of where it needs to be. But the simple fix was to remove the axle and flip the sprocket to the left side of the hub that it bolts to. Now I am almost perfectly aligned. Also the axle adjustment bolts need to have extra nuts put on the inside of the braket they go through to be able to adjust the axle both forward and back on each side. I moved the regular nuts which came on the bike, and were desperately trying to escape, to the front side of the bracket and put nylock nuts on the outer ends. These are 8-1.25 metric nuts. This adittion will give the axle/chain adjusters a chance of staying on the bike without tightening the chain too tight. Before they only had the chain tension to pull against.
Hope these tips help!

 

Whiskers,

You are awesome. Thanks for the response. I measured this on my bike more accurately after work and I came up with the swing arm being about .75 inches off to the right. I also thought about moving the sprocket but I wasn't sure how difficult it is to remove the axle. Any insight that you can give me on how to do this would be greatly appreciated.

This solves the chain alignment problem but does not solve the dog tracking problem. That will require some fairly major off season surgery. I was thinking of requesting a new swingarm from Anam, but it sounds as if they may all be this way.

Also, great idea on the nylocks. I too was looking at those - wondering when they would leave me.

I have not even told my son about these issues as he is in love with this machine. That makes my $850 well spent - regardless.

Thanks