'79 Special Will Not Shift Into Second Gear

[paulapalooza]

Hi everyone,

First off, it has been a while since I have been present on this site and it's great to be back.

Now the problem... My friend has a 79 special that will not shift into second gear. The bike runs in neutral and first gear fine but that is all. It will not shift into second when the bike is running or off. Now because it is not my bike, I am unsure of exactly what happened; what he said is that he was riding at about 30 mph when the bike made a nasty noise, stopped running and puked out some amount of oil (of course he is not sure where from). There are no large holes in the block or pan (ie. no thrown rod or anything like that) and the bike did fire back up and run in first gear.

I am assuming that something has broken in the transmission that is causing it not to shift, however while I am fairly knowledgeable about the rest of the bike, the transmission is something I have never really worked on. We have removed the cover behind the shift shaft and ensured that the alignment of the assembly is correct and from what I can tell everything is in the right spot. We have tried shifting gears "manually" by using a flat screwdriver on the edge of the shifting ratchet assembly with no success.

Are we missing a small issue or does it seem like there might be a larger problem in the transmission. Thanks in advance for the help.

Cheers

[trbig]

First thing is to take the shifter lever, then shifter cover off to see if any of the pins are lost/bent on the shift drum. While this wouldn't explain any oil puking, it will eliminate the easiest possible culprit.

[TopCatGr58]

Hi everyone,

We have removed the cover behind the shift shaft and ensured that the alignment of the assembly is correct and from what I can tell everything is in the right spot. We have tried shifting gears "manually" by using a flat screwdriver on the edge of the shifting ratchet assembly with no success.

Are we missing a small issue or does it seem like there might be a larger problem in the transmission. Thanks in advance for the help.

Cheers

Tod, they did take off the shift lever cover, verified that the shift lever and pawl are aligned, but didn't mention whether they could see the star washer was bent or not, or if there were any pins missing from the shift DRUM END.? They say they did try a screwdriver on the edge of the shifting ratchet=pawl?? but if the pins were missing, it wouldn't work anyways since there wouldn't be any pins for the pawl to grab to be able to rotate the drum??

I wonder if the owner had problems with the 2nd gear skipping, and had been holding the shift lever UP to keep it in 2nd, and that he finally broke a shift fork??

Would be nice to see a photo of the shift assembly of the bike.

T.C.

[BA80]

Will it shift PAST 2nd into 3rd? If not, most likely a pin broke or fell out.

[HalfCentury]

I know that the XJ bikes have a plastic shift guide that breaks down over time. Pieces get stuck in the gears and prevent shifting into second.

I bought an XJ650 parts bike that would not shift out of 1st. I rode it home (5 miles) in 1st gear.

The cure is to flip the bike over, open it up, and fish out the pieces of the shift guide.

Does the XS11 have a plastic shift guide?

[BA80]

No plastic in an 11 engine, XS or XJ.

[wingnut]

Primary chain guide material maybe?

[motoman]

Nope Wingnut, but cam chain guides top and front are UHMV plastic, like used on chain driven bikes street and moto-x for rear wheel chain guides and tensioners.

[Rasputin]

If you end up needing parts I probably have what you need as I have several engines apart around here. Let me know and I can check it out.