AM Hawg Ty with new torque converter and electronics test ride

#1
I took my Hawg Ty with the new torque converter on a test ride of 8 milers through some of the trails I know would be a good work out and if I broke down had a chance for some help if I needed it.
After having an aborted test ride earlier this week where the master like securing clip went into orbit, I was a little leery about a 2ND breaking for some reason that was not obvious.
This being a Sunday ride I expected the Park to have a few folks out walking,jogging, mountain bike riding and maybe even a Dirt Bike or two.
As it turned out my favorite parking spot was occupied and I had to drive an additional mile to safe spot where my trailer would not be an issue to other drivers.
This actually worked out well as it gave me some time to run up and down the paved Park's drives and really stress out the drive system and see if any part failed. None did. The torgue converter engaging under full throttle sets you back in the seat smartly. The bike being heavy plus all the crap I carry along with my butt is a load on the Predator 212 engine.
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Start of the trails 1/4 mile past the gate.
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Ill be riding a few trails you have seen before,just much farther out to the west than I normally go.
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The lower portion of the mountain is nice with the trail having a few rocks and boulders allow a chance to blow-out-the-cobwebs a little as well as backing off the throttle quickly and seeing if the repaired "button's" hold up in the driven clutch/pulley. They did.
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For the most part Trail Heads are clearly marked and you have several choices as to the type of trails you want to go on.
The trails change all the time by the Rangers. This is to stop severe erosion by heavily traveled trails and flash floods during our monsoons.
Out here ,unlike most of the USA, damage to the land takes over 50 years to heal. Some of the trails close to where I ride still have Tank Tracks from WWII training. One trail in Santa Fe still has Wagon Wheel Ruts from the 1800's.
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As I'm climbing up the mountain I find that the T/C does require a little more throttle to keep the clutch engages as compared to the jack shaft drive system.
It is much smoother and quieter as well.
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As you climb above 8,000 feet the rocks start to appear. This is due to more wet weather than at lower elevations and also due to our very high winds in the fall and spring.
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The first leg of the ride would be easy to do even on a hard-tail,small tired minibike.
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Climbing up past 9,000 feet the air is cooler but the sun is very intense in the open areas.
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The tell-tail signs that I will be in the boulder fields soon.

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And sure enough, here they start. These sections of boulders will go for a few hundred yards in some places and then just open up into a flat field of trees.
Another Trail Head, I actually go off to the right as I want to descend the mountain and find the flash flood trails where riding is more of a challenge.

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Here was the first chance to test the T/C for belt slippage and engagement. I needed to feel how the bike responded to applied power.

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Another open section going to the East and up a couple hundred feet.
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A Mountain Biker, A Pit Bull dog and his handler said Hi as I caught up to them. I have the LED head light on and they said they saw me well before they heard me coming. That is good. Running into a Dirt Bike doing 50 on a blind curve would not be fun.
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A really nice portion of this trail that winds through the pine trees.
END OF PART ONE. many more to come.
 

delray

Well-Known Member
#2
cool place to ride for sure. I see your riding a older hawg ty. does it still have the good round knobbys on it. when I had one it came with the round knobbys. they would handle so good in any conditions. I don't think there is a better tire to use for all around usage.

photo file picture with them on.
 
#3
#2
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What is fun are the denser portions of the trail. The Rangers do a nice job of making sure you can see who is approaching while giving you a "maze" type transit through the Scrub Pines.
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Another trail head and I'm going to take the "Medium" difficulty route.

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There are always downed trees due to our high winds in this area. Thin soil and weak root systems show few trees that are over 60 feet high.
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I'm almost at the crest, heading West again and downward off the backside of the mountain.

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A mountain biker approaches. I'm sure this guy did not like my evil gas burning bike, he did not even acknowledge I was even there.
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This rider liked my bike and said so as he passed by.

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I kept the throttle at a set point to see if the T/C would adjust and climb this section of the trail, it did better than I though it would

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I had not been on this section of the trail before. I ended up climbing for a long ways. The drive belt never slipped once during the climb.

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The trail seemed to go on for a long way without all the boulders I'm used to running into almost immediately.

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The trail then did a steep drop-off to the right

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A few boulders and another Mountain Biker. And just around the corner.........

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I found the Flash Flood damaged trail. This was the beginning of a really fun ride over boulders.
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The trail was boulders, broken tree limbs and tree roots. I'm going to take the trail less traveled...

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This went on for about 300 yards. I was glad I was wearing long pants. The heat coming out of the clutch cover was intense. If I was in shorts I would have been burned for sure. The jack-shaft cover got hot but was not vented. You smelled the heat more than felt it.
The air being blown out of the vents by the engines cooling fan was hotter than you'd think it would be. I can only imagine how hot the clutch and belt were getting.
END OF PART TWO
more coming.
 
#4
Yes, it is a 2004 model. It has the "Scorpion" tread design tires. At 4 PSI I found there are few things I can't get really good traction off of.
The ride for a hard-tail is better than you'd think.
 

delray

Well-Known Member
#5
Yes, it is a 2004 model. It has the "Scorpion" tread design tires. At 4 PSI I found there are few things I can't get really good traction off of.
The ride for a hard-tail is better than you'd think.
what I like about them is the tread wraps around to the side. not like most tires don't do and the tire is round allowing to roll the bike hard into the corner and not dumping it. I think the smooth rocks would be the only bad spot?
 
#7
#3
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Now this is more like it. I did smoke the rear tire on a few boulders when the clutch engaged suddenly. Here the belt did slip a few times as it tried to pull the total weight of me and the loaded bike over some of the larger boulders.
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And always there is a break of some sort that allows the engine/drive to cool down a little.
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And as expected more rocks and boulders. This is what I'm looking for. I needed a test for the T/C to see if the change over from a jack-shaft was
worth it.

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In places the trail will get very narrow and wind through the trees.

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The trail will meander for a good distance, which is all well planed out by the Rangers.

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They will take you up/down for several hundred yards,and for the most part it is a good,fast trail.

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This section zigzagged for a good distance which was fun. I did notice that the T/C did not transmit 'Torque Steer" as the Jack shaft did at times.
The bike with the rear tire centered to the frame tracked straight as an arrow.

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I stopped to get my bearings. At this point I could have gone in several directions. I stayed on Mahogany going due west.
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I had not hit any real rocks/boulders for a good distance by now. The bike had cooled down and was climbing as if it was made to do it all the time.

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Just some rocky ares that were easy to pass through. Still climbing. Were up there close to10,000 feet.

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The smooth buried boulders are the ones you really have to watch out for. With low pressure tires the surface has a tendency to roll the tire off of the boulder in a direction you don't want to go. A good oblique angle of attack has always worked for me.

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And I run into a guy I have stopped to talk with many times. He liked the conversion I did to the bike. He's my age as well and has no one to ride with as do I. I'm not into full fledged Dirt Bikes, but would ride with him If I had one to ride. He owns some rare and really nice Honda's.

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We talked for about 20 minutes and yacked about the trails and what lay ahead. I told him about the Washed-out area ahead for him and he,the boulder pits I was to ride into.

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We ended up yielding to a kid on a mountain bike who would not ride around us. I guess he owned the trail and did not want to ride his 3500 dollar bike into the rough.

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We went our own ways and I hit the rock fields a hundred yards down the trail.....
END OF PART THREE.
more to come.
 
#8
Let's just say that there are nice young folks and not so nice young folks. You know the types,just turn on the TV.
I always say 'Hi" to everyone I meet on the trails. I always stop for hikers,folks on Hose Back ( lots of those) and groups of bikes or a biker on a really challenging slope or boulder field. I figure they are working much harder than I am. All have thanked me for letting them pass.
Most folks stop and talk or have something nice to say as I pass them. The others....who cares what they think?
 

delray

Well-Known Member
#9
looks like a lot fun riding. I like to build another large baja bike with rear suspension again and run a 7inch 20 series comet(no overdrive) and also a larger rear sprocket with a good strong low end torque motor. get two or more guys together and road trip all day on the trails.
 
#11
#4
Heading down the mountain again
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a nice Fire Road went for quite a ways. There were just a few rocks. 49.JPG 51.JPG

Then back into rocks and small boulders.

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Too a steep decline and larger boulders. The 2D camera just does not catch what it really looks like....

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I passed a biker who wiped-out. He said he was O.K so I pressed on.

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Then the trail turned into NM Mud. The tires sailed right through it with no problems.
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Back to climbing again and I was moving out pretty good.

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Then it happened. After a pretty good bump, i ended up sitting at a fair angle to my right. The seat had collapsed. I looked under the seat and saw cracked paint and brass braising exposed. I was sure the spring support had cracked.
I did a 180 and headed back. I was close to the end of the trail by less than 1/2 mile. Oh well. Stuff happens.

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I headed back up the mountain hoping I could get past the boulders I knew were ahead.

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Now that I was "Detroit Leaning" keeping my balance was going to be a chore.
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I looked forward to the smother trail sections. 62.JPG
But that was short lived. I did manage to stay on the bike all the way back to the trailer.

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So it goes. Rocks, empty trail,back to rocks again. My butt was really starting to feel the road.
END OF PART FOUR.
more to come.
 
#12
Final batch of photos:
I have many more photo's of me riding back to the trailer,but after looking at them they are just the reverse of where I had been. With a broken seat I took my time returning to the start so I'm just including the last few photos.
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The final leg to the pavement.
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I made the asphalt at last and now it is a mile or so to the parked car.
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I pretty much have the road to myself and can really open up the engine.
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You could get five mini's drag racing here. What fun that would be.
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This is the most crowded I've seen it get. I normally ride during the week days. There may be two other cars parked on a busy day.
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The Hawg Ty once again came through with flying colors running the new T/C. The seat spring bracket turned out not to be broken,rather the right seat spring open coils had somehow unscrewed itself down to the taper built into the spring and it dropped through the bracket hole.
What I saw was the spring rubbing on the bracket hole removing the paint in chips exposing the brass brazing,leading me to think the bracket was broken. It wasn't until I got the bike home and removed the seat and disassembled the supporting brackets I saw what had happened.
The open spring coils are used as if they are threads and are "screwed" into the open bracket until the Tight coils are touching the face of the bracket.
There the spring coil is torqued down allowing the seat spring to have full movement to adsorb shocks.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
In conclusion, do I like the Torque Converter?
Yes.
Was it worth it?
Yes, I bought mine for 45 bucks delivered.
Does it have an advantage over the Jack Shaft chain drive?
Yes under certain terrain conditions. It will provide a "gear" that the chain drive just cannot do at a certain RPM. This is very apparent going over large boulders and climbing steep inclines.
The T/C is much quieter.
It is much smoother as well.
Top end is slower although it feels as if I getting to the max speed quicker.
On the down side the drive is much wider. My left leg is at an angle that is a little unnatural and will take getting used to.
The heat from the drive clutch under load is unpleasant. The engine cooling fan blows the heat out of the plastic drive cover vents right onto your left calf and if not covered by long pants, you would get burned. I may carry my Infrared laser thermometer on my next ride and take some readings.
Buzzing around a neighborhood at 25 MPH I doubt you'd ever notice the heat. Climbing boulders at 2 mph you darn sure do!
I may cut off the foot pegs and move them up and forward a little to clear the heat and give me more ground clearance.
***
Do I recommend you convert to a Torque Converting CVT drive? Yes.
Thanks for your time reading these post. We'd love to have you come to NM and ride with us. Most days are sunny here ( 280 sunny days a year average) and in the mountains you can see for over 100 miles. It's one of the best rides you can have on a tight budget.
Rob.
 
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