Have you ever heard of a GW transmission failure? It's all over the GW forums. I've owned 4 GWs last one being a '06 which I had converted into a trike. It's on its 4th local owner now, I was the second owner with only 700 miles on it when I purchased it. I traded it in at 48K miles and the third owner (a riding buddy) kept it less than a year. The fourth owner at 60K miles blew the transmission, something about a "dog-leg" failure in the tranny. Which I've learned since, isn't a rare occurrence. Prior to the tranny failure he had his tranny jumping out of 5th gear into 4th gear.

Trying to save on getting his trike towed. He decided to ride it to the Honda dealership instead. He ended up toasting the tranny further.

Since he was out of warranty it cost him over $6K to replace & repair his tranny. Other than the cost, he's happy with the repair, says it runs like new.

 

If it were mine, I couldn't help but wonder if the trike conversion had something to do with it.

A close friend of mine has 3 wings; the oldest an 1100. If you do any of the east coast rallies, you may have seen him: he calls his latest "The Bible Bike" & it has the story of the Bible painted around the bike. I believe between the 3 of them he has over 500 or 600 thousand miles, those things are bullet strong & utterly reliable. To my knowledge, no tranny problems with any of them.

 

That would be reasonable, however after further research on others having the same GL1800 transmission failures that weren't converted into trikes and remained stock; that theory becomes null.

The GL1800 transmission early failure symptoms appears to be "Ghost-shifting". The transmission would shift its self out of 5th gear into 4th gear on its own.

The GL1800 is an excellent engine and it's about as bullet proof of an engine that's presently available. The transmission however is not. This transmission failure isn't the norm, but it does occur.

 

No one has considered that your buddy doesn't know how to use a clutch correctly?

Yeah I've got 150,000 plus on my RG with the original clutch plates and yes that indicates a good design. It also indicates that the guy riding the bike knows what he's doing with the clutch (all modesty aside for a moment.)