reverse shiftin' tiger

[cornman]

first off, very informative forum's ya got goin' on here. thanks for keepin' it real!

just so you know, i'm not a tiger owner. i know, i know, heathen though i may be, i AM trying to help out a interweb challenged new carb'd tiger owner.

here's the story....
it has reverse gearing. you know, like a racebike! shift up for first, shift down for the rest....he ain't diggin' it.
when he bought it (for a great deal) the previous owner didn't know why it shifted that way and claimed it never bothered him enough to look into it and "you can probably fix it pretty easily by buying some thingamabop that bolts on the the linkage".
so my pal sang a little song and did a little dance and rode away.
he took it to his local triumph dealer but, i guess, they were flummoxed by the crazy concept of a "race shift" tiger.

here's where i come in. i know a little bit about motorsnickles and have worked in "the industry" as a parts schlepper but when it comes to mechanicals i fall a wee short. my tool kit is made up of a nerf hammer and a screwdriver with a cork on the pointy end so i don't hurt myself.

see where i'm going with this?

so why, oh why, does this tiger shift funny? if you look at his linkage set up next to another tiger's of the same year they are exactly the same.

checking out the parts diagram for the gear selector drum it has a description of "reverse"...hmmm..what the? did they come from the factory with reverse shift? is there some reason they had to put a reverse drum in to make it NOT reverse?
maybe his motor isn't the original?

has anyone ever had or ever heard of this weirdness before?
also, if it comes down to it, has anyone ever replaced the gear drum before? does it take more than a nerf hammer and a corked screwdriver?

so, thanks, any and all, for your time and any responses, helpful or otherwise.

[abruzzi]

My guess is the reverse shift means it has an engine from a different bike like a Daytona.

Geof