neutral between every gear??!?

[snowbeard]

so this morning on the way to work, I had fifth gear try to slip out of gear at highway speeds, under acceleration!! it was just a little give in propulsion, and didn't drop out entirely, just some slipping feel and the indicator light for 5th gear kind of flashed.

occasionally I've had it drop out of gear between third and fourth, or second and third, after lazily kicking it into gear and it falls out. kinda strange, but it was my fault for not securely setting the gear lever on each shift. this time I'd been going for ten miles at least...

any thoughts? is something getting worn? I sure hope it's not the splines, but they looked fine last time I had the wheel off. that and the gear indicator light flickering makes me think it's gear not spline...

[lhanscom]

2 possibilities, and maybe a bit of both. If you didn't make a firm shift, and get it completely seated, this can happen, as you've seen, and may even happen after some miles. Something that may aid it in coming out, would be if you blipped the throttle a bit, or hit a bump in the road, it may just be a fluke. It is also more likely to occur if the next item is true. The shift dogs, and the gears, and the shift forks all get worn over time, abuse accelerates this wear. If things wear enough it will pop out of gear, this usually will happen in 2nd gear first, as it tends to get more abuse then the others. This problem is also why drag bikes have back cut gears, it forces the gears together under power, rather then trying to come apart.

The only solution requires splitting the cases, and probably will require getting some new tranny parts. So ride the bike, and hope it was a fluke, and just keep your eye on things to see if it happens more and more often.

[SqDancerLynn1]

It would be well worth the time to remove the rear wheel & check the adapter splines carefully

[snowbeard]

well I had sort of blipped it, just wrang the hell out of it actually to pass some monkey on the highway who was speeding up and slowing down as I would.

I think I will pull the rear and check the splines too!

thanks!!

[pete]

I also have a similar problem, but only in fifth and sixth, but it doesn't really go to neutral, just drops a gear.

I remember (haven't ridden it for over four years now!) when I hit sixth, if I didn't do it firmly, it would always drop back to fifth under hard acceleration, but if I hit it real firmly, it'd be fine.

Occassionally, it would do it from fifth to fourth as well, but only on rare occassions.

I've already replaced the front sprocket as I found it was actually loose. I didn't know this at the time I bought it, but the nut holding the sprocket on was only being held in place by the washer. It wasn't even finger tight, just floating on the splines. Fortunately, I found out that just replacing the sprocket was enough, I didn't need to replace the shaft as well.

However, because of the fifth and sixth issue, and also because it's off the road and needs a lot of work, I'll be removing the engine shortly and pulling it down to check the gearbox out thoroughly.

Oh, and my rear sprocket has very pointy teeth and my chain is dead, so those will be replaced as well...