n less than 10 years BAKER Drivetrain has become almost synonymous with upgrade transmissions and gear sets. Run down the spec sheet on any custom built worldwide and chances are good there will be a BAKER connecting the engine with the rear wheel. Open up the FatBook and they’re all in there, too; 5- and 6-speeds, overdrives, right-side-drive setups and builders’ gear packages and conversions are all available. And with applications for Evos, Twin Cams, Sportsters and even Shovelheads these quiet-running, smooth-shifting, tough-as-nails transmissions (offered in gleaming polished billet, chrome or black wrinkle) all perform as good as they look. And to think it all started with a stolen motorcycle.

Work in progress at the BAKER Drivetrain shop.

     Ten years ago Bert Baker bought a brand new Harley, a Softail Nostalgia, and he brought it to Daytona’s Bike Week–where it was promptly stolen. Unable to recover that bike Bert took the insurance money and went home to build a motorcycle of his own, using a 103-inch S&S. Unhappy with the vibration that bike set up, Bert, a mechanical engineer at General Motors, changed the final drive ratio to smooth things out, but in the process absolutely killed the acceleration. Drawing on his 14-years experience at GM and an Engineering Degree from M.S.U., he decided he’d fix things with an overdrive 6-speed transmission of his own design. About a year and a half later, after much R&D and prototyping and valued input from his wife, Lisa, also an M.S.U. graduate and GM mechanical engineer, Bert had that overdrive transmission. Instead of making just one, though, he figured he might as well make 50 of them. Needless to say, those overdrive six-speeds were snapped up fast. Ron Simms was at the head of the line to buy No. 1.
     By 1998 BAKER Inc. was in business, with Bert and Lisa running their motorcycle aftermarket project as a sideline. In 1999, with the demand for those BAKER transmissions growing exponentially they both left General Motors to devote full-time to the motorcycle aftermarket. It wasn’t long, however, before that original 6-speed overdrive transmission was being copied, and today there are probably half-a-dozen units on the market patterned after it, many of them made offshore. The introduction of the Twin Cam Harley, though, with its transmission solidly bolted to the engine, offered a fresh opportunity. The Bakers realized that with two sets of gears running in a conventional overdrive situation inside these transmissions noise would become an issue. While 5th gear was still relatively quiet, 6th gear wouldn’t be because the transfer of power through the transmission wasn’t a direct-in/direct-out configuration. The solution is the just-introduced BAKER Drivetrain Direct Drive 6-Speed Overdrive. Instead of adding that overdrive to the internals of a Twin Cam 6-speed, this time BAKER would overdrive the primary and change the ratios inside the transmission by 14-percent to compensate. That over-driven primary pays other dividends, too. Starting is easier, and so is shifting. Additionally, BAKER added high-contact and exceptionally strong helical-cut 4th, 5th and 6th gears to the package, a definite improvement over the more commonly used straight-cut gears. BAKER’s Direct Drive 6-Speed Overdrive comes as a complete package, too. It includes a replacement compensating sprocket for that overdriven primary and a properly sized chain.
     That’s not all that’s new from this Michigan company. A just released Drop-Starter/Slam-Clutch (D.S.S.C.) package is aimed straight at the custom builders. Not only does the D.S.S.C., with its right-side-drive, allow the use of those fashionably huge rear tires, this assembly repositions the starter motor, too, which means the seat can be lowered a full 2-inches more than would otherwise be possible. Additionally, the D.S.S.C.’s clutch has been moved inward towards the centerline of the chassis, more than 2-inches, and a direct result of that is better handling thanks to a more centralized concentration of weight. The D.S.S.C.’s offered as a complete package, too. The primary’s there, the clutch, transmission, starter, the works. It’s totally billet, and available in a polished finish or chrome plated.
     BAKER Drivetrain’s Haslett, Michigan, shop–where all this is designed–is actually a high-tech R&D, prototyping and assembly center. Located just outside Detroit, that makes sense. Once a BAKER design has been finalized, much of the casting and forging and gear cutting is shopped out to the many high-quality vendors in the area, job-shop businesses routinely servicing the auto industry. These people know how to make things, make it to spec, make it well, and have been doing it for some time. Ninety-percent of the work is done right there in Michigan, too, the remainder let out to a few other U.S. shops. Everything is American made, and BAKER quality checks each piece before the units are assembled and shipped to those Drag Specialties warehouses.
     Tough as it might have been to swallow at the time, that stolen motorcycle back in 1994 turned out to be a great thing to happen in the Harley-Davidson aftermarket.

The BAKER Drivetrain Direct Drive 6-Speed Transmission.

Drivetrain’s Drop-Starter/Slam-Clutch (D.S.S.C).