Carl La Fong tranny blog

[Carl La Fong]

Be sure to navigate to the beginning of the blog. The link takes you to the last page

[Els]

Very interesting and will look to see how things unfold. Not 100% sure of what the Ranger is all about and not sure whether this project was also attempted by another, perhaps Bill Alexander? Is this tranny the setup or basis for what Sabertooth is now using?

Your bio was every bit as interesting and admirable as your projects. Thanks for sharing...

Els

[Carl La Fong]

Yeah, this is the Bill Alexander unit. There are 15 or so on the road. Steve Barr had one before he converted it to a trike. It is a proven design. As I said in the blog, it was originally a truck unit Called the Ranger Torque Splitter. I forget who built it, Warner Gear? I dunno. Anyhoo, Advance Adapters obtained the rights and tooling and continued building them, mostly for off-roaders. Someone (Bill A. ?) stuck one in a BH. It worked well, but the gearing was all wrong. Bill and Advance designed a new gearset with a 50% reduction in first gear. This turned out to be the hot setup. It is about 7 inches long. On a BH it is about 5 inches from the rear of the Nesco to the tire. By building a swingarm 5 inches shorter, as I have done, the net gain in wheel base is about 2 inches. No stretch limo look. Yes, this is the same box that Sabertooth uses. In fact, they read my blog, before I got into it, and offered to do the job for me so they could R&D a kit for BHs. I had to provide the major pieces. I said, "Sure, but you gotta pay to ship the bike to your shop and back to me." I guess that was too much for them, I never heard back. I am just a tradesman, union scale. I'm not a lightweight, but I can't pull 2 grand outa my butt like it's an ATM, and ship my bike all over kingdom come. I figured if they were players, it shouldn't be a problem. At this time, I don't see a hell of a lot of Saberteeth on the road. I think it may be a two wheeled Tucker.

[Els]

Steve and I are good friends and neighbors. Although I didn't see the bike he bought from Bill with the Ranger, Steve said it ran really good. I do see it regularly in it's current incarnation...a bigblock trike that Tom B. converted for Steve. Hopefully Steve will pipe his 2 cents here to give his personal opinion rather than through my recollection of the good things he said about the tranny.

When Tom B. first got involved with the tranny and started the whole Sabertooth thing, then Breedlove Motor Works (BMW, ha ha) as I recall, the prototype bike was a stretch limo and he caught a bunch of shit over it. I believe he was working directly with Bill A. at the time.

From what's been recently said on the board and elsewhere about Sabertooth, I'm not too surprised hearing what you say. I'm not going to spread rumors or do the "he said/she said" deal but there was talk that they aren't on the best of terms with their tranny supplier/builder amongst others. Seems like they're tuned in to these boards pretty good and I suspect Michelle will have something to say poste haste if history repeats itself. Although I personally love seeing other players in the V8 bike world, it seems that Boss Hoss, V8Choppers and Vanquish are currently the only real deal and only significant players.

Thanks for the info. I've been tuned into the workings of Bill Alexander since way back around 2001 or thereabouts via the Yahoo V8 Free Speech Forum.

Els