Won't budge out of 5th gear

[hyaall]

Need help! Started out this morning, noticed "the beast" was unusually reluctant to shift from neutral to 1st, shifted up to highway speed and thar she stays. 5th gear. Clutch works, shifting gears has no effect whatsoever - so now I'm parked with no seeming way to get the bike out of 5th gear. I'm looking for some advice. Is this likely an indicator of something catastrophic? Riding over for the summer - or perhaps not so difficult to repair? Much appreciate any ideas.

Wes G

[mitch]

shifting drum

The frist thing i would check would be the shifting drum, pull the shifting lever,thenthe side cover that is directly under it there is a drum under that with pins in it that cause the lever to rotate therefore sifting gears.If there is a pin missing it could be in ur oil pan so u know what u gotta do bnext hope this helps regards Mitch

[hyaall]

Thanks Mitch, I'll give it a try.

Wes

[TopCatGr58]

Won't down shift!!!

Hey there HiYall,

Sorry I was out of town for the past few days, or I could have helped you with this earlier. Classic symptoms of a bad shift lever return spring!!!!! The return spring pulls the shift lever back up to reset the ratchet mechanism. Usually though, once your in 5th gear, which involves pulling up on the lever, the shift pawl will be set to rotate the shift drum around to put it back in 4th, but then the spring won't put the lever back up far enough to reset the shift pawl, so you keep banging down the lever and nothing happens. A gentle pull upwards on the shift lever, just far enough to let it reset the shift pawl will allow you to shift it down into the next lower gear, and repeating the gentle lift process will continue the downshifting, you just have to pull gently enough to pull the lever up to reset, without shifting back up a gear.

However, if as you state, it won't shift out of 5th at all, then one of the pins on the end of the shift drum may have come loose/ broken and so there's nothing for the shift pawl to grab!?!? Hope it's the spring and not the pin!!! Good luck, and let us know what you find!!

T.C.