06 'dropping' 2nd gear?

Anyone ever had or heard of anything like this, FJR or otherwise?

Symptom: when accelerating hard in 2nd (think WFO..), at high rpm (6-7.5k) the bike momentarily loses power. There's a slight mechanical 'chunk' sound coming from the gearbox area when it happens, like a gearshift but much quicker and not as pronounced. It takes a very deliberate WFO roll on to make it happen. No problems whatsoever when riding the bike normally. No problems shifting.

I first noticed it ~ 6 months ago during a 'spirited' ride with some friends, rolling on power on corner exits. Pucker factor high, since it's enough to upset the suspension when it happens with the bike anything other than upright. I was running synthetic oil at the time, and immediately changed it out for conventional (yammi stuff, plus yammi filter). I've put several thousand miles on since going back to conventional. I'm about to take it in and see what the shop thinks, but I'm very skeptical they'll be able to repro it without using a dyno. So I did some 'testing' this morning on an empty country road to try to give them a better description of the problem.

It seems unlikely to be a slipping clutch issue, since it's very abrupt, like a drive train hiccup, with almost no change in engine rpm, more like a pause in climbing rpm's. It feels like the bike is going out and then back in gear somehow. It happens very quickly, probably too quickly for the tach to register any rpm increase. I could not reproduce it in either 1st or 3rd. It only seems to happen following an upshift from 1st to 2nd, with WFO throttle roll on in 2nd. Doing a downshift from 3rd to 2nd, then WFO roll on through 2nd doesn't seem to trigger it.

I'm not a hooligan. The bike has not been abused or raced. The bike has 14.5k miles. My concern is if there's a shift fork or something out of whack, it will eventually get worse, so better to get it taken care of now, but I'm betting the shop will recommend a new clutch, which wouldn't be covered under warranty. I could do that work myself, but skeptical that it's needed, since there's no indication of a slipping clutch.

I've not experienced what you describe, then again, I rarely ride that "spirited". I have noticed however on several occasions, a reluctance for the bike to shift from first to second. I've always suspected a bent fork.

Anyone ever had or heard of anything like this, FJR or otherwise?

unfortunatly i have had this exact sympton on my 1997 vmax,, i am a spirited rider all the time,,

this surly sounds like the 2nd wheel dogs,, you may not know what that is,, i didnt until i rebuilt my first motorcycle trans,, which i did on my max..

to make a long story short the gears dont actually propel your bike,, each gear has a slot cut in them at about the 1/2 diamater area.. the neighbor gear has there square pegs for lack of a better word,, the job of them is to slide / lock into the gear it is mating with,,

on my max [ and it was second gear also ] what would happen is if i was rolling about 4k rpms or so and hit it hard it would have a "skip" [ i went electrical for a while until a friend rode it.. he was a max guru ]

he said your 2nd gear dogs are worn and "poping " out of the mating gear and locking back in in a revolution or 2,,

when we split the case he was right,,

im not sure how to post a picture here BUT a picture is worth a thousand words...

ACTUAL DOG ON GREAR:

https://bigbikeriders.com/photopost/showpho...&thecat=500

ACTUAL 2nd GEAR WHEEL:

https://bigbikeriders.com/photopost/showpho...&thecat=500

Man I know the internet is full of but heads with a million opinions about everything,, but what you have describes sounds so much like my wierd issue i just had to take the time to post the pictures[/COLOR]... please let me know if you see what im talking about and if it helps you.....??

I'm sure that is the right diagnosis based on your description of the problem. It will continue to get worse as the dogs wear and will cause the shift forks to bend also. The dealer should be able to fix it up for you.

I had this very same issue on my '99 R1. I took it in to the dealer to get it repaired and the mechanic couldn't get it to happen for him. I told him that it only did it while holding a wheelie in second gear. He didn't even blink, said okay and sure enough when they tore it apart that's what it was. Fully covered on the YES. That was a great dealer that I wish was closer to where I live now.

Good luck with that one. I'm really impressed with the FJR so far as I've got 74,000 miles and second gear is still holding strong. I took one out of a VMax, second gear didn't hold up on my old ZX-11 either and the '99 R1 had the tranny apart 3 times in 100,000 miles. You could say I'm VERY impressed with the tranny on the FJR. I have only used the YES for a throttle postion sensor that was recalled a month later so that has not been nearly the investment that it was on my '99 R1.

Great info, thanks! Not sure why I didn't consider the dogs as a possible culprit, but that definitely could be the cause. We'll see what the shop says. If a tranny tear down is needed I'll probably opt to defer the work until winter.

Update: the bike's in the shop with cases split, confirmed dogs mating 2nd and 5th gear are the cause, but Yami is initally saying the repair won't be fully covered under warranty because the shift fork is bent. I plan to chat with their customer service dept.

I've had a ton of bikes over the years, but the FJR is by far the easiest shifting bike I've owned. I'm extremely skeptical of Yami's position that the shift fork became bent as a result of bad shifting and that's what led to the dogs slipping, based simply on the fact I can't remember a single instance where I've had anything other than a perfect shift going into 2nd on this bike.

My question to the gear-heads - how likely is a slipping dog to cause an otherwise straight shift fork to bend?

When the dog pops out, the gears spread; they can only be as close as the top surface of the dog allows. The shift fork can't move out of the way to allow that clearance except by flexing. Enough flex to actually bend it back and now it can't force the gears close enough to fully engage the dogs, which in turn. . . . . etc.

been there done that, they fixed mine under warranty.....

but they had the bike for almost 3 months, parts on back order.....

hopefully yours will get done faster.....

Been having a major issue with mine reluctanly going from 1 to 2 as well. Has done it almost from day one and I have put a lot of miles on bikes with no clutch issues. Sometimes it plain kicks it back into my boot, other times it's like it's skipping teeth. Never been abused but it seems to be getting worse. Sometimes if I preload the shift lever it works better but I shouldn't have to do that.....may need to swing by the Yammi dealer on this one as well.

So if 2nd skips ONCE, the shift fork is f***ed? Haven't had a problem myself, but hope these trannies are a little stronger than that. I'm not familiar with the newer (and space-saving) 'stacked shaft' arrangement, but seems the dogs and forks are more vulnerable, no?

Guess if we always pay attention to shift positively, we can avoid partial engagement of a gear, sometimes leading to false neutrals and gears popping out of place. And when that happens, the 'crunch' afterwards sounds even worse IMO.

Bottom line is those problems don't go away by themselves, so better face them head on, and hopefully covered under warranty. Take care.

JC

So I stopped by the Yammi dealer today and described my problem...they too are lead to believe that it is the shift fork/2nd gear dog but wont be able to say until they get to test ride it and look more into it. Will take ~2 weeks to take a look at it and if it is indeed the issue, another 8-10 weeks to fix. Hopefully YES will take care of me on this one b/c this bike has never been abused.

Well dude.... had the same circumstances.... it is a bent shift fork, and now wear on the gear dogs....guaranteed....

One messy shift can cause this. ex. neutral when trying to shift to second. clutch in and back to first. SMACK..... thats all it could take.

Mine was fixed under warranty along with the valve guides. ( not too much luck with my 03 FJR at first. Now all is well.....I think...

Mine has done that sometimes, but only a handful in the 6k I've put on it. Seemed to do it much less and the shifts are smoother when I run Rotela rather than Valvoline. I've switched back and forth twice now to make sure it's not my imagination.

Update - I've exausted all options with Yammi CS, they're still only willing to cover parts (approx $550 retail), leaving me stuck with a $1,300 labor bill to get the bike buttoned back up. Word to the wise - don't assume your YES contract will cover this type of scenario. In my case, I ended up having to take the bike in to a dealer other than the one I bought it from for the diagnosis and repair, due to a buy-out\possible-closure of the dealership where I bought it from, so I think what it came down to is not having a dealer willing to really step up.

Photos of the drive axle showing bad 2nd gear dogs are posted here - link It was tough to get good photos due to glare and the gears still being on the axle. The photos can be viewed full rez if you download them. I'll try to get better pics with the gears off the axle if possible.

It looks to me like what happened is when the dog first slipped under heavy engine load, the shift fork got whacked. Once that's happened you're F'd. Yammi's position is that if the shift fork is bent, it's likely an indication of either a "missed shift" or abuse, and it's not a warrantied repair. There's definitely no way you could bend the fork with foot pressure on the shift lever. In my case the first instance happened at around 12K miles, rolling power on in 2nd gear on a corner exit. I'd shifted from 1st > 2nd at around 4k RPM's, then got her up to just under 7K before the dog slipped - just a quick hiccup type thing, not completely falling out of gear. After that it would consistently do it again on hard acceleration at > 6K RPM's so the damage was obviously done. It took me a while to convince myself to take it in since it rarely happened under normal riding, other than possibly freeway on-ramps. This bike has never been abused, wheelied, raced, or shifted without fully disengaging the clutch.

In one of the photos, the non contact side of the dog seems to have been cut at a slight angle which would allow it to stay engaged under load, but the surfaces on the contact edge look more like straight 90 degrees, which makes me wonder if they are originally cut at a slight angle, and possibly square off over time. I noticed the metal on the gears with the male dogs is noticeably darker than the other gears. I'll try to get some photos of the new gear for comparison.

PING Iron Pig -- I need to ask you some questions about the repair on your AE with similar problems. I sent you a forum email with my email address...

Adam,

Most likely, that first time it jumped may have been because the gears weren't fully engaged. The shift fork was trying, but if the gear didn't slide over all the way due to a heavy load (got bound up as you were applying throttle), it already had some pressure on it.

You say you got it up to around 7k, and without a dyno chart I can't be sue, but that's pretty close to peak power. When you got there, that gear that was only partally engaged jumped out and back in (the dogs "jumped time" once), putting a ton of force on the shift fork that was trying to push it all the way in. Make sense?

That one event could definitely bend a fork, which is why you feel the "jump" more frequently now.

The sift forks are designed to slide a gear, not really push one, or to hold gears in place.

i am sorry that you are going through this is it is a terrible thing to have to deal with.

The shop where I had purchased my bike was able to get it fixed for me under warranty.

Or as a good will gesture.

I really think it is a design flaw, or if you happen to get a bike that is shipped out of spec.s from the factory than you have a problem that is masked for months and miles but eventually, shows itself........

So i think you got a Monday after hangover bike or a Friday want to leave early bike!!!!!

My baby this time last year!













Just make sure they switch our the shift drum as well!!!!! As it is more than likely toast....

Finally got mine back today after 4 weeks at the dealer. They certainly dont think there is a bent shift fork and think it checks out OK. At this point I will just continue to monitor it and see if it gets worse...perhaps it's just lazy 1-2 shifts causing it, I don't know but ti doesnt do it all the time and neither the sr mech or the owner could replicate it. WOO HOO!! I am back in the saddle again!

Good Lord! It took them 4 weeks to tell you there is nothing wrong??!!

I thought my local service was bad. I'm sorry you have to suffer that kind of service.

Glad you got the bike back, enjoy the riding season!

There's a reason racers rebuild their bikes so often. Slap them bitches around and they get cranky and costly to keep.