2nd gear is wonky...

[Odinist]

It's been like this since last season. I've learned to live with it, as the 1-3 shift isn't bad. But, I'm curious as to what the actual issue is.

I can shift the bike just fine into second gear. But, once I put any significant amount of throttle to it, it clanks out of gear (not like, it shifts itself into neutral, or first or something... but like, it'll clank around and not give me any forward movement).

When I first got the bike, it would jerk itself out of gear like this in 2nd, but only if I rode hard into the revs in second. It progressively got worse up to the point it's at now.

Is this something fixable?

[rcp]

You're describing the classic symptoms of worn gear engagement dogs, and possibly bent shift forks. Fix is either to replace the transmission, or send your transmission out for repair to a place that can hard weld and reduct the dogs, that'd be APE or Fast By Gast or the like.

- Richard

[Odinist]

By "replacing the transmission," do you mean this stuff: http://tinyurl.com/ov7567

Is that something pretty easy to do?

[sharpy]

Arghhhhhh you mean the old pull the engine, turn it upside down and pull the lower half off and replace that worn parts trick? Not sure whats the 550 set-up is like but larger bikes have 2nd pressed onto the shaft and get welded to make sure it wont spin. thats one way the other is replace the whole setup with one from that site like above post recomends.

[rcp]

By "replacing the transmission," do you mean this stuff: http://tinyurl.com/ov7567

Is that something pretty easy to do?

Asuming that's your model of bike, yeah that's the stuff. I wouldn't call it "pretty easy". You have to split the crankcase, which most would consider takes it out of the easy category. It's not extremely difficult though. Get the a shop manual and read through and see if it's something you think you can tackle.

550 shop manual is available from BikeCliff's website.

- Richard

[Odinist]

Asuming that's your model of bike, yeah that's the stuff. I wouldn't call it "pretty easy". You have to split the crankcase, which most would consider takes it out of the easy category. It's not extremely difficult though. Get the a shop manual and read through and see if it's something you think you can tackle.

550 shop manual is available from BikeCliff's website.

- Richard

I've had a copy from Cliff since I found these boards. ;-)

Splitting the crankcase doesn't scare me. I've rebuilt a few car motors before. I'm still fairly new to bikes, but I've been learning (carbs still mystify the hell out of me though, haha).

I figure it'll be a good winter project then. I'll make sure and take a ton of pics when I do it, but y'all are going to have to wait until riding season is over in Oklahoma (sometime around November, hehe).