at last, inside the tranny

[kf4anm]

tonight was the night, we pulled the motor and onto the bench it went. ( it wasn't bad at all, with 2 of us it slid right over and out.) i pulled the bottom cover, clutch cover, and the other side cover. we examined everything, looked over what i printed from here and in the manual. here is my next batch of questions for those experienced in this operation.

where we are: you can see minor wear on the dogs and scoring on the inside of the primarydrive gear. it looks as if first is not getting pushed farther enough in.

how much slop should be inbetween the gears on this shaft?
is this one shaft removable without dorking with the clutch?
could there be another problem prevent 1st gear from engaging completely?
when we manually ****ed into first the gears seemed to mesh fine could i have a clutch problem after all?

i have some good photos and will post them as soon as i can them loaded

also on another note, when i removed the timing cover there is extensive corrosion on everything. is there something i can spray to help the situation?

[kf4anm]

gear pic

hopefully this comes through
http://www.snapfish.com/slideshow/AlbumID=10473297/PictureID=211187458/t_=8486849

[sixtysix]

My first gear would pop out under acceleration. When I open the tranny (did it in the bike, no need to remove motor) I found that the shift fork was badly worn (nubs gone completely) almost any wear on a shift fork (or a slight bend) is reason to junk it.



You need to pull these out to check them, also the 1st and 5th? gears had the wear on the dogs and hole you spoke of. To fix it right i would take everthing apart (on that gearshaft) and check everthing for wear. New gears and frks are available still and would be the way I would go. You can also do the balck and decker fix if you like. Shift forks are not repairable.

Good Luck.

[John]

Another item to check is the shift drum, or cam. The top of the shift fork rides in the grooves in the drum, and follows the grooves. Look at the areas where the grooves have 'curves'. Any wear there can add to your problem. If you add up the play in the drum, the top and bottom of the shift fork, and the wear on the affected gears, it can be quite a lot. That's where I found a lot of the wear in my trans.

[Jerry]

how much slop should be inbetween the gears on this shaft?
is this one shaft removable without dorking with the clutch?
could there be another problem prevent 1st gear from engaging completely?
when we manually ****ed into first the gears seemed to mesh fine could i have a clutch problem after all?

1. More than you think. The dogs (side nubs) fit into the holes in the other gear only at their tips. Limited gear mesh is a common problem with all Yamaha transmissions of this era, not just the XS/XJ. One often-mentioned modification is to move the washer from the circlip side of the 2nd gear to the backside of the same gear. This increases the meshing of the two gears by about .040.

Disadvantages are pretty theoretical. In general it is considered to be a bit more risky having the gear potentially rub directly on the clip; it could lead to a clip failure. However, this swap is done often with good feedback and possibly only 1 report, in a racing bike, of failure. To be on the safe side, there is a mod: get a 2nd washer (no longer available from Yamaha, you need one from a donner transmission) and cut or grind the clip-end of the 2nd gear down enough to fit a 2nd washer, ending up with 1 washer on each side of the gear. This moves the two gears closer and protects the circllip from possible damage.

2. You have to remove the clutch so the rod that holds the shift forks can come out of the engine. Removing the clutch is not a big deal. Critical part is on the reinstall...you have to make sure the star-shaped finger plate is correctly aligned, or you will break it with only minor force on the hold-down bolts. Use a torque wrench on the clutch bolts; the amount required is very low (8.7 ft.-lbs in the XJ) and it is easy to over-tighten them.

3. Other problem is worn shift forks or drum, covered in a couple other responses.

4. Clutch problems, possible. Check the friction plate thickness (3 mm, worn out at 2.8mm) Spring length (41.8mm - 42.8mm) and for any bent pressure plates. (.1mm is limit.) Make sure the free play in the cable is set correctly. A common set-up that works well is using stock Yamaha friction and pressure plates but swap in Barnett brand springs.

[kf4anm]

tran

thanks, i was expecting to see a mess when we pulled the cover, but nothing seems out of the ordinary. the reason i asked about the slop, we compared the first gear dogs to the donor tran parts and they seemed pretty close. there is like i said visible scoring on the inside of the primary gear. i think to be safe we will replace all the gears that share the first gear shaft. then change all 3 shift forks and the drum. we were discussing last night whether the shift for looked bent or not. ( i have a complete transmission from another xj so parts are not a problem.) my concern removing the clutch is the book calls for a special tool that you bolt onto it to remove the first part before the pressure plates will come out. -thanks again

[mitch]

Special tool

The only special tool i used was a hammer and a chisle to remove the large nut. LOL......MITCH

[Jerry]

When I did the XJ's tranny, I didn't use any special tool to pull the first plate. However, you need to turn the bolts each an equal amount and 'go round the horn' turning each one in sequence. I did it with about 1/2 - 3/4 turn per bolt each go round. (Assemble the same way.) Trick is to relieve or apply the pressure equally over all the bolts.

[TopCatGr58]

Dogs and Slots

Hey there Daryl,

Your link to the Snapfish site requires a login, so that's why it didn't work! You mentioned you have spare parts, but you will want to take a good close looks at the 1st gear dogs and slots, and even if they only look a little worn, you may still want to run the black and decker fix over them to sharpen their edges up a bit. This picture is from an XJ that essentially would not stay in 1st gear with hardly anything above idle put to the throttle!! Note the severe rounding of the dog compared to the other edge of it, and also of the shelf/slots that it meshes with! The 1st gear will eventually fail, so doing the grinding now will allow it to last many more years without symptoms, since you're already into it now!!!

T.C.

[kf4anm]

clutch and pics

i pulled the clutch tonight. i went fairly smooth. i loosend all 6 bolts 1/4 turn at a time. i only had 5 springs, should there be 6 since there are 6 shafts? we are ready to pull the 1st gear shaft assembly. going to bring home the clip puller from work tomorrow. i am going to try the photo posting again. if it works the photo is a close up of the 4th gears dogs going into first. you can see mild rounding on the dogs and the scoring inside first. how does it look compared to the ones ya'll have changed.

http://indy_xj_tran.tripod.com//site...tures/dogs.jpg

[kf4anm]

re-assembly

today i picked up new seals from yamaha, new clutch springs and ordered a new mac 4into 1 from crc2. they confirmed that my 1st gear was garbage. now its time to put everything back together and a new puzzle has come up.

what is the best order to reinstall the 1st gear shaft, shifter drum and shifter forks?

the spring under the left side of the shifter drum is giving me trouble.

[TopCatGr58]

Hey there Daryl,

I did a repair without removing the shift drum, so I would suggest you put it back in first, then the gears, then the shift forks. Have you inspected the 2nd and 5th gear dogs and slots closely? They are also just square cut, not reverse cut from the factory, and they can fail as well, so while you've got it apart, you might want to consider undercutting them a bit to further enhance their life, time before they start to act up. This is also suggested to OldNortonRider as well. My first gear gave out, and after babying it and going to second, the second failed soon thereafter, requiring me to recut both!!!

What's interesting is if you look at 3rd, you'll see that Yamaha DID undercut those dogs and slots!? Why they didn't do that to the other lower gears that get more wear and tear we don't know!?

Daryl, did you ever get that step by step procedure I had written up? I can't stress enough about using the 10mm socket on a long extension (ONLY), and tightening them 1/4 turn by hand without the RATCHET, occasionally pushing on the star plate to rock it in the early stages to ensure that the shafts of the 2nd pressure plate fit within the tangs of the star plate while you are tightening things up. Then once the bolts are seated, you can then get out your LOW SCALE torque wrench and take them to only 7.5 ft/lbs!! Good luck!
T.C.

[kf4anm]

reinstall

thanks i will try it with the drum in. it seems kind of tight getting the 1 and 3 shift forks to fall into place. i did however figure out the spring dilema. it was interesting to learn how little rounding it takes to ruin a dog.

xj history:

i know the xj was only sold here in the states in 82 and abroad in 83, 84. there doesn't seem to be much history on the net about it. the smaller xjs made it a few years in production but the 1100 died. my only theory is that yamaha introduced the 920 virago v in 1981 and it was so popular that continued production of the xj was discontinued. other than the v-max (which will run like a scalded dog) i don't care for the v bikes. give me a inline 4 anytime. is there an official story behind the xj??

[TopCatGr58]

Hey there Daryl,

Brain Fart here, Yes, put the drum in first, but then I had the 3 forks in place loosely, then put the gear shaft in, and after getting the first 2 forks aligned, and slide over, mounting/inserting the shift fork shaft to hold the first two in, cause you have to let the 5th gear fork slide downward partly into the engine to allow room to slide the 5th gear in from the outside hole, and then after you slide it in, you can the slide the fork up onto it, you might even try using a bent clothes hanger in the fork mounting hold to pull it up into position, then a thin screwdriver from the outside so you can pull the clothes hanger out while you slide the shift fork shaft into place, don't forget to ensure that the shift fork shaft's slightly cut recess matches up with the large gear closest to the clutch side. I'm sorry I told you the other, hopefully you'll check here before attempting to put it back together, see below pictures!

BTW, during breakdown, it was highly recommended that the shift drum and gears were to be put into 4th gear before disassembly, same holds true for reassembly!

[kf4anm]

install

thanks i will give it a try. i've got the drum in but will take the gear shaft back out. (its a pain to get in as well) then put the forks in and try to jockey the shaft back in. other than the ball game at 3 its the only thing on my agenda today, get this thing done!

the pics came through on the reply, that helps alot thanks