i have a shifter question for somebody

[paolo1]

while i was riding my 78 xs1100 bike today i was going through the gears and down shifted into 1st and the shifter just stayed down and didn't pop back up until i took my foot and pulled it back up.this has occurred a couple of times what should i look at is it the gear sticking or lack of lubrication at some point?

[DGXSER]

Sounds like you need to look inside the shift fork cover on the left side of the engine. IT is a rectangular shaped cover that the shaft the shift lever mounts on, goes through.

There is a return spring on the shifter to bring it back up, these can get weak and fail. But you could also have an alignment issue with the shift pawls in there. If you look through the tech tip in the repairs section on the 1st 2nd gear repair, it has some good pics of what it should look like in there.

You want to make sure all the C-clips are in place and the shift fork shaft itself is not sliding around. It has happened that the C-clip on the other end that holds the oil pump idler gear on would come loose. Then that idler gear can slide out or off the shaft and ruin the gear. Not likely from what your describing, just saying to be sue to check while your in there that the shaft does not slide either direction more than a couple mm or so.

[Ken Talbot]

Check out the shift lever return spring pictorial.