clunky tranny
 

My 1999 I just bought is a fine little bike , Except the shifting is not what I think it should be . 1st 2nd and 3rd a little are very hard to shift to smoothly . I'm assuming this is somewhat normal for these bikes , any other
owners feel the same ??

1-2 shift is always hard or clunky but if the other gears are doing it as well you may want to switch to a new or better fluid.

This thread has lots of useful information as well

Trying 20 50 now , will try something else next time .

I guess I'm dissappointed in Honda for not making it like butter . My Harley shifts much better . Thanks

Synthetic oil will help a little if you're not using it already.

My new 2001 SH does the same. 1st and 2nd gear are a little rough, up from there it's pretty smooth.

the best thing ive found to do on my bike is when going to first from neutral, pull in the clutch and rev the motor a little bit before shifting into first, just make sure your back at idle before shifting. while going into second from first, it seems to work best to not let off the throttle completely when you shift, it makes it much smoother. and shifting from first to second around 3500 rpms seems to work the best.

The one - two shift is a bit clunky but that's the nature of a high horsepower bike with this kind of torque. The gears have to be big because this dog takes such a big bite.

Boots make a huge difference in the shift. All my midgrade boots perform poorly when shifting the Superhawk. My cheapy little Vegas and my high end Alpinestars are the best.

All that said, this as close as you can get to a truck transmission on two wheels.

You also might want to rev it a little higher before you shift. If you are used to riding a HD you might not be used to the higher redline of the SH. As the others have said 1st - 2nd can be a bit clunky at times but if you shift at around 5k or higher in the rest of the gears it should work pretty good. When mine starts to shift hard, it means it's time to change the oil, even if it before it 3k normal change. New oil and it back to nice and smooth. ;)

I said this in another forum somewhere but try flushing your clutch fluid a couple of times until all's clear and use dot5 synthetic. Mine shifted much better once I got all the gunk out. ALso, when you change the motor oil, flush the old oil with a quart of Gunk engine cleaner and run synthetic oil with a quart of marvel mystery oil.

P.S. your Harley shifts better? I've owned two of those garbage heaps (never again) and not a single function those two wheeled piles of crap did approached the refinement of any of the four Hondas I've owned.

Why would you want to run DOT 5 fluid? That stuff is plain nasty. First if you don't get all the DOT 4 out you have a mess and second with DOT 5, as it is not hygroscopic (or doesn't absorbe moisture), you end up with all the moisture that the system sucks in condensing in the low point (in the SHs case, the slave piston) causing rust and other nasty stuff unless you change it on a regular basis. It's just easier to stay with DOT 4 and do a quick flush when it turns black or if you must change go to DOT 5.1 as it is not silicone based. YMMV

Shifter line up
 

When you have the shifter at the height you like, make sure the arms of the shaft lever and the shifter are parallel. This will make for the smoothest possible transfer of motion. Oh yea, what they said about oil too.
A Barnetts clutch kit will make one a little grabby at low rpm as well, but they don't let you down on the big end.

no big deal
 

im jumping on the band wagon with this one. 1-2 is very clunky, but it is the nature of the beast, i agree with reving it a little higher to make it smoother. with the wife on the back i dont like to jerk her around so i always rev the lower gears a little more on this bike because of this problem. Synthetic does help with the notchyness of the shift but the clunkyness will always be there. ah, the life and trials of a superhawk owner.:)