How durable is the 2nd gear fix?

[Shuriken]

I kind of think with my bike, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." So I'm wondering about the 2nd gear issue.

If I ever have the engine accessible or something like that but 2nd gear isn't doing funky stuff (45k miles) is it worth tinkering with anyway?

Ben

[Ken Talbot]

I've enjoyed a bit of tinkering myself over the years, what with keeping Tsunami , Purple Reign , and Black Ice on the road. Tsunami has just clocked over 88,000 km (55,000 miles) and has never displayed the second gear problem. I may enjoy tinkering as much as the next guy, but I'm sure not going in do second gear just or the fun of it.

[TopCatGr58]

Hey there Ben,

Mine developed the 1st gear problem 1st, then second came shortly thereafter. Like Ken said, unless you were going to tear down the engine and pull it off the frame, I wouldn't bother with it. I did mine in 2000, have ridden to several rallies and a few thousand miles so far, and it's seemed to hold up quite well, however after putting my big bore in it, I decided to not put so many highway superslab miles on it just to get to the rallies, so that's why I built my trailer. I don't ride it every day to work either, again, to keep the mileage and wear to a minimum. It took 9 years and somewhere over 50K to cause it to happen, and I was a bit rough on those lower gears also!

If you do a Big Bore kit, then you'll have the clutch out and so it won't be much more to pull the countershaft bearing cap off and slide 5th out to inspect it. If the dogs look like they're getting rounded off a bit, you could then do the back cut technique and save yourself an extra trip inside later!? I would highly recommend inspecting 1st/4th as well. You'll want to take a look at the tech tips pictures and diagrams to see the wear I'm talking about! HTH.
T.C.