CHAPTER 11 - TRANSMISSION

[Confucious]

Posts regarding #Transmission

[samwise]

Coming back from my trip to Yorkshire last Tuesday, and I started getting crunching noises when trying to get into 1st from neutral at rest. Carried on by going neutral --> 2nd --> 1st and that was OK, as was dropping it into 1st while still moving.

Got on it yesterday, and cruuuuuuuuuuuunch, first gear not there, 2nd --> 1st was OK, so off we go. Got to my mate's place and sat there in neutral and it slipped sweetly into 1st from neutral, no problem :roll:

Chatted for a while, then when I went to go again, cruuuuuuuuuuuuunch. Rolled it back and we adjusted the clutch to see if that would help, but no. He reckons the shift fork is bent :shock:

Got home, and it slipped sweetly into 1st again, at rest from neutral. :spitfire: Not what I need just before my two Euro trips :?

If it's the shift fork, that means splitting the crankcase - not gonna happen in the timescale I've got now :( Looks like the clutch and left hand will be getting a work out, being pulled in and held in at stops etc :(

[squirrelciv]

Odd one that samwise :? Things like selector folks dont usually just up and fail. Only time I ever had anything go wrong with one was atfer a crunch which caught the gearshifter.
Dolly can get a little noisey going into first if the oil's old or low, and worse if the clutch is out of adjustment (usually crunchy first is my que to check :oops: ) My money would be on clutch first. More likely to give out suddenly too if you think about it.

Carting all those panniers about must have been the final straw :D :D :D







I'll get my coat :oops:

[samwise]

It's only 1st that's affected though - I woud've thought that all the gears would've been affected if it was the clutch :dontknow:

[squirrelciv]

Know what you mean, but things are like that sometimes. Had a GN400 that was a git to engage 1st, worse trying to get back into neutral. fine thereafter, just getting going was the problem. Decided to strip the thing down assuming something awful, got as far as the clutch and discovered a wavey thrust washer had been chewed somehow. Replaced it, bolted everything back together, never had the problem again :shock: Don't understand why this weedy thrust washer made such a differance but it did.
I'm guessing, but could it be to do with the way the gear shafts in the box engage with the crank when going into 1st :? If the drive chain isn't properly disengaged then the vast difference between spinning bits and stationary gears gives the problem. 2nd gear may (I don't know) be a different layshaft.
Either way a good nosey round the clutch is simpler than spliting the crank, and if that's what needs to be done then the cluch has to come off first anyway :wink: Go for the easy first and add a lot of prayers/crossed fingers/rabbits feet. :shock:

[anton88]

Ben - not teaching one to suck eggs, but if this helps: if you take off the clutch cover, make sure youve got :

1) a new gasket

2) new clutch plates/springs - if you think it needs them.

Buy or use an old allen key for the size of the case bolts and cut the end off so it is straight. You can then use this in a socket to reach the bolts at the top of the side cover - i didnt have a long enough bit to reach them so improvised.

Also take it easy, unless youve taken the side off before, as all my bolts/nuts were very stiff - luckily didnt snap anything.

Hope you find and fix the problem - god forbidd that its an engine out/split case job !

[samwise]

Update tonight on the way to watch TT practice - crunched a little on starting at my place. Got to my mate's 11 miles away, stopped for a while waiting for him to get ready then started again and it snicked into 1st without a problem.

Got to Douglas Road Corner in Kirk Michael, watched the practice, back on the bike, started up and it went straight into 1st no problem.

Back to his for a cuppa, back on it to come home and straight into 1st no problem :?

The only thing that I've done is topped up the oil Friday evening, rode to a mate's here in Douglas and back with some crunching issues, but nothing since - I wonder what oil the dealership used at the service, and whether adding the Silkolene Comp 4 has improved it? :?:

[squirrelciv]

Dolly can get a little noisey going into first if the oil's old or low

Nahnah na nahnah. Told you so :D Dommie gear boxes do seem to be susceptable to low/poor oil. Can't figure out why though.
No matter what now, you can definiately discount the selector drum. Things like that just don't repair themselves.
Good news though well done matey.

[samwise]

If it carries on OK, then I won't worry until after I get back from the Dolomites at the end of July - I may put it into a guy called Slick here on the island at the end of the summer for a revamp - he does race bike engines over here :wink:

If it survives the trips this summer, then I'll be looking at giving it a going over in case I take it to the US for a month in autumn 2007 (it's either fly it over, or buy and sell back over there) :lol:

[samwise]

Buggeration, went out tonight to show a guy from ADVRider and his missus to Brandywell corner using the back road to watch practice, and no 1st gear again, and even lost it dropping down from 2nd whilst moving one time :evil:

Think I'm gonna have to bite the bullet and hope that the dealership can fit me in over the next week or so to check the 'box out, prior to going away to France on the 16th :(

[Confucious]

[quote="samwise"] I may put it into a guy called Slick here on the island at the end of the summer for a revamp - he does race bike engines over here :wink: quote]

Morning Ben - ask Slick if he know's Rob Verrier (Good friend of mine) who until recently raced sidecar at national level. He's been to IoM on a few occassions. ...looks a bit like Hagrid, and people wonder how he manages to sit on a bike - let alone race 'em :lol:

[samwise]

Took it down to the dealership and he smelt the oil - clutch is going! Smart arses, the lot of you :lol:

Ordered the parts to be fitted - my wallet says ouch :cry:

[squirrelciv]

Just glad you got to the bottom of it before the big trip :shock: And repairing the clutch is a lot less than a gearbox (trying to find the good in a wallet battering scenario :oops: )

[samwise]

And I thought I was doing so well too for the holiday - 9 nights in hotels in France for £177 or £89 each :lol:

Now got to add in the £100+ for clutch replacement - ah well, such is life 8)

[samwise]

New clutch fitted today (ouch, that wasn't cheap! but it did need it with the look of the plates) and it was still making a grinding noise going into first from neutral, and was hard to find neutral too.

Took it back, and we had another look - noticed that the gear lever was contacting one of the mounting bolts for the centre stand. Hmm, didn't used to.

Further inspection showed a self-tapper holding the gear lever to the spindle :shock: Took it off and the gear lever moved freely - no splines left :? Someone had bodged it to work at some point, and now it had stopped working properly. We put another bigger one in and it tightened up OK, with the gear changes working smoothly now.

Checked prices etc, and to change the spline is an engine out and split job :shock: Looking at £105 in parts, £50 in gaskets and Honda quote 6.1 hours of labour, plus oil and VAT, naturally :cry:

Not good news that

[Rubberchicken]

Further inspection showed a self-tapper holding the gear lever to the spindle :shock: Took it off and the gear lever moved freely - no splines left :? Someone had bodged it to work at some point, and now it had stopped working properly. We put another bigger one in and it tightened up OK, with the gear changes working smoothly now.
Ah crap.
Mine has spline damage as well, but still enough left to get some grip. I widened the opening in the lever so that it would grip the remaining splines better, but if there's no splines left at all...

Checked prices etc, and to change the spline is an engine out and split job :shock: Looking at £105 in parts, £50 in gaskets and Honda quote 6.1 hours of labour, plus oil and VAT, naturally :cry:
Yeah that's a painful job.
You could ofcourse try your own hand at botch jobs... ;-)

I've been thinking of ways to deal with this when my splines finally cack it, and I was thinking about making a slot in the axle for some kind of little plate to fit into (like a flathead screwdriver), and then the plate can stick out at one end to be clamped into the lever with the bolt.
(Hmm that's probably as clear as mud.)

You'll lose adjustability but it should be mounted solid and still be removable if you have to work on your chain. And if you screw up, well otherwise you had to split the engine anyway. ;-) Just an idea...

[samwise]

The dealership said they could try setting the lever in the right position, then arc-weld it to the spindle :dontknow:

[squirrelciv]

Glad to hear you've got your bike back on the road :D
Not so glad to hear about your bodge :cry:

Loose gear levers are one to watch on a Dommie as they have a tendency to self slacken. One bodge is to drill down between lever and gear shaft opposite the pinch bolt, tap a thread, and fit a M4 grub screw. Another, more drastic one is a blob of weld :shock: but it's a grinder job if you ever need to remove the lever afterwards :wink:

[Rubberchicken]

The dealership said they could try setting the lever in the right position, then arc-weld it to the spindle :dontknow:
Yeah that's the canonical bodge, but will you be able to get the sprocket off with the lever welded in place?

[anton88]

Bad news about the sprocket shaft :(

I would advise against having the shift lever welded on - when you need to change sprocket /chain youre screwed.

I would wrap the end of the shaft with some kind of cloth tape and then tighten the lever onto it :?:

[Rubberchicken]

I would wrap the end of the shaft with some kind of cloth tape and then tighten the lever onto it :?:
I don't think that'll work... You've got a pretty big lever for such a small axle, and it's already stripped off the metal splines.

[samwise]

I think I'll just leave it for now with the grub screw holding it together - if it breaks, it breaks (hopefully after I get back from the Dolomites :? ), and then at some point next year I'll retire the bike to on-island stuff, and get something newer for off-island travels (see thread in Chatter :lol: )

[Rubberchicken]

I think I'll just leave it for now with the grub screw holding it together - if it breaks, it breaks (hopefully after I get back from the Dolomites :? ), and then at some point next year I'll retire the bike to on-island stuff, and get something newer for off-island travels (see thread in Chatter :lol: )
That's basically what I've done with my NX, except for the island bit. ;-)
The beastie's getting a bit old, 50k miles of hard life on the clock, and things are starting to wear out a bit. Would be just my luck to get stuck somewhere far from home.

Though I gotta say, so far the new cow's let me down more than the NX ever has. :-/
(Lost the shift lever yesterday. How's that for a H-D moment, I had to stop and walk back to the intersection to try to find the parts that fell off...)

[Sanchez]

Hi, guys! Last night I was riding my Domi - I stopped at a traffic light, waited for the green light, shifted to 1st gear, accelerated, got into 2nd and then needed to downshift, but couldn't. The transmission got stuck into 2nd gear. The gear shift lever moves freely and returns to the horizontal position, but it fails to change gears. Guess I gotta dismantle the whole bike in order to take a peek inside the crankcase.

Anyone got suggestions? What might have broken inside the gearbox?

[catteeclan]

Hi, guys! Last night I was riding my Domi - I stopped at a traffic light, waited for the green light, shifted to 1st gear, accelerated, got into 2nd and then needed to downshift, but couldn't. The transmission got stuck into 2nd gear. The gear shift lever moves freely and returns to the horizontal position, but it fails to change gears. Guess I gotta dismantle the whole bike in order to take a peek inside the crankcase.

Anyone got suggestions? What might have broken inside the gearbox?


Could be part No 6 has come loose. Or maybe spring N0 8 is brocken.

http://www.oemmotorparts.com/oem5.asp?M=Honda&T=NX%20650%20DOMINATOR&Y=1996&L=NX650T&O=GEARSHIFT%20DRUM&F=HO-NX650W-E__1700&L2=NX650T-E__1700

This is in the clutch side so could be worth a look before pulling the engine out.

[Sanchez]

Could be part No 6 has come loose. Or maybe spring N0 8 is brocken.

http://www.oemmotorparts.com/oem5.asp?M=Honda&T=NX%20650%20DOMINATOR&Y=1996&L=NX650T&O=GEARSHIFT%20DRUM&F=HO-NX650W-E__1700&L2=NX650T-E__1700

This is in the clutch side so could be worth a look before pulling the engine out.
Hi! Thank you very much for the hint. I opened the clutch cover first and nothing was broken. Then, i pulled the engine out of the frame and dismantled it into pieces. After a whole day of hard work, 2 broken screws and precious help from my friends, I finally split the crankcase to find out that nothing was broken. There aren't even signs of wear. Somehow, the claw that slides on the plate fixed on axle no. 9 in the link that you gave me, got stuck to that plate. A light touch and the spring pushed it back into place. No signs of wear on the sliding bolts or rail. Nothing. Should I have kicked the bike with my boot, run it into a sidewalk, or let it fall over, the claw that rotates the gearshift drum would have snapped back into position.
That's just bad luck. It could have been worse - I'm glad that the gearbox didn't get stuck while performing some brave maneuver in traffic.
Now I know - next time it fails I'll just abuse it a little. This bike is just like a woman.

[catteeclan]

This bike is just like a woman.

:p They all are.