Just ran across a page talking about B&J transmissions and it brought back lots of childhood memories. When I was going to Porterville JR College in Porterville CA. in about 1968, I had a school job of janitor for the machine/mechanic/welding shops and drafting room. Went in every afternoon and cleaned off all the machinery and swept up. One time someone in the shop was turning a wooden piece on the metal lathe and making a HUGE mess. He worked on it a week or so. Turned out the guy was with B&J transmission shop in Porterville and he was building the wood pattern for casting their first 2spd racing ******. I talked to the guys @ B&J when I found out what was going on and they designed it to operate with one planetary from an Olds Hydramatic ******. Speaks well for the strength of that grand old machine! Anyway B&J now works out of Utah, got out of Calif, and has several versions of their shifter for fuel bikes up to nostalgia top fuelers, anything up to 4000hp.
When Ì was a machinist, one of the engineers got kind of chummy when he found out I was a racer/hot rodder type, he said he was in the process of putting a B&J transmission on a bike, I got the feeling he was gonna be in need of having something machined. I really wasn't into bikes so dont recall what it was, never saw the B&J installed but one day he went on a blast through the machine shop with it (I think he was a bit of a loose cannon). Must have either just quit or got canned because we never saw him again.
The Jalopy Journal
