Help! It wont shift!
 

Okay, 1st thanks to all who have been there for me helping along the way to get this Stage1 motor up and running.

The only problem I have now is it wont shift and I fear it's not going to be a small problem:banghead:

I've run it some in 2nd or 3rd cuz that's where it started out at to try and bed the bearings & rings some, but now it's in 1st gear and with a lot of fiddling I can get it to neutral and back to 1st but not back to 2nd or 3rd:(

Any ideas what I did wrong when I put it back together?

Thanks,
RC

It sounds like you may not have the shift drum oriented properly.

to shift the drum has the 3rd-4th and 5th-6th forks between gears and shifts the 1st-2nd gears. It then puts the 1st-2nd fork in neutral and engages the 3rd-4th fork and so on. You may also have shift forks in the wrong location.

Do you have neutral, between 1st and 2nd? I would try having the rear tire off the ground and shift the gearbox by manually rotating the rear tire, with the engine off, to figure out what works and what doesn't. The next step would be to drop the oil pan and visually inspect.

Stay cool and go step by step. I'll check back in a bit...

It goes into neutral, but it's not real positive and only after I fiddle with the shifter for a while. It's probably the shift forks cuz I'm not sure how I put them in there now it's been a while ago...

I'll let you know what it looks like as soon as I pull the oil pan.

If needed can I split the case while the motor is in the frame?

I misstated the shift operation.

The right fork engages 1st, then shifts to neutral. The left fork engages 2nd, then 3rd, then back to neutral. The right fork then shifts from neutral, to 4th, then back to neutral. The middle fork then engages 5th and 6th.

At least that is my best interpretation from the assembly drawing and recollection. I have a spare transmission at home, if you need more help with the operation.

You'll probably have to drop the engine, but the heads can stay on.

Oh well at least she runs good even though I can't go anywhere:)

Try and do as much troubleshooting as you can and understand the cause before you start tearing it down.

You can remove the shift fork shaft and shift drum without splitting the case, but it may be a can of worms. If it is a matter of shift drum orientation, you may be able to fix it that way.

I'd start by removing the clutch basket and shift detent mechanism and rotate the shift drum by hand to see what is being held up. Rotate the back wheel to make it shift. Figure out a way to see the shift fork actuation, while doing so (mirror on the floor and a light??).

good luck. Remember, it's just an inconvenience. Take your time.

Will do & thanks again for all your help! I'll never seal up a case again w/o going through the gears...

1st check:

Are all 3 shift forks in the grooves on the gears? The center one pretty much has to be.
What about the right and left ones?

Shine a light in there and look. Let me know.

I will let you know. I had them all meshed in the grooves when I closed it up and had it in neutral so everything would spin, but neglected to shift it through the gears before I closed it up:(

Ok.

When the shift drum is all the way clockwise, the right shift fork should move right. The other two should be in the center position. One click counterclockwise puts all 3 forks in the center position. This is neutral. The next click moves the left fork to the left.

Good info! Sometimes I just have to learn it the hard way:(

Not much to add at this point as it does sound like a shift drum issue. Did to disassemble anything in the trans while you had it apart?

Nope, I didn't take the tranny apart. I tried hard to keep it all together so I wouldn't have this type of issue. I did have a gear slid off the end of the counter shaft or maybe it was the main shaft, but I quickly put it back...

I didn't setup the shift drum as Rand described cuz I didn't know it would go back together more then one way. I should have asked:banghead:

Well it's not like we all haven't done something similar at one time or another.
The good part is that it pretty much has to be the shift drum then. ;)

If the forks are all in their grooves, you may be in luck.

The shift fork shaft has only the forks on it. You can pull it out without losing any small bits. By doing that, you can probably disengage the fork dogs from the shift drum and rotate the drum to the proper orientation.

Put all of the forks in the center position and rotate the drum clockwise until the grooves line up with the dogs. You will see the jog on the right groove of the drum which would move the right fork right. that is the fully clockwise position of the drum and corresponds to 1st gear. Rotate a few degrees counterclockwise from there.

It may take some patience and very small people to get the forks lined back up to the shaft, but that'll just make the beer taste better, when you are done.

It's sure worth a try!

I added a bit more commentary to the previous post that may be helpful.

got it!

One more thing, for a complete description:

Neutral is actually a "half-click" position. One of the lobes on the star wheel has a small detent position on top of it. When the shift drum is in the neutral position, the follower will be sitting on this small detent.

Culprit found!
 

Not sure why but the shift star failed and got cockeyed causing the follower to bind up = no shifts!

put new star in and shifts like a champ through all 6 gears:D

Congrats!

Kind of common.. .. seems to happen a lot when folks install a shift kit. or reassemble after rebuild.

It's easy to not get the pin aligned with both index holes,, and then when you tighten down the bolt, if you’re not really looking./././ you won’t see that the part is misaligned.

This was a weird star that looked warped when installed. I took it out several times and tried to reinstall it correctly and it just wouldn't go in right. Then I took the one off the original motor and it went on correctly 1st try, so my guess is this part was damaged when the donor motor went down before I purchased it...

Here's a vid of the 1st startup:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08tYJLnZOu4

Dyno to follow!

Thanks for all your help along the way!