The bike is a 1977 FXE. The problem is that it is difficult to get the tranny into first gear. Sometimes it will go into gear and will then pop out of gear. If I start moving while continuing to tap at the shift lever it will eventually catch. All other gears appear to be fine and downshifting into first is also fine. This only occurs going from neutral into first when the bike is at a standstill. The clutch is adjusted properly and prior to the onset of this a few days ago, the clutch and gears seemed to operate fine. One other note: while letting bike idle yesterday, there was a sudden gush of at least an ounce or 2 of tranny oil puking out onto the garage floor! In inspecting where it came from, I found that it came from the main shaft seal area. Although there was a minor leak in that area before , I never saw a sudden gush like this occur.
In another thread which I started earlier this week, I had noticed an odd, erratic "popping "-like sound which I thought was coming from the engine . However, upon further observation, it appeared to be coming from the vicinity of the kicker cover. I can't help but feel as though these symptoms are all related somehow.

Any thoughts about this would be much appreciated.

 

a bunch of things can actually cause that all need the trans completely disassembled to fix

you need to be mechanically inclined and some special tools can be worked around but not all

 

Short of pulling the transmission apart, what about the shift pawl mechanism inside of the ratchet drum? I am about to pull the primary case apart to investigate this problem. If it is something to do with the pawls, what should I look for in that regard?

 

two thing go on when the shift selector is not right

1 - a broken spring but then the shift lever hangs down and you need to lift it out of first to shift to neutral or second

2 - rotator bushing very worn it starts to stick and even locks and wont shift in or out of gear

3 - the trans top cover bushing does not what your talking about

4 - the ratchet cover can be removed when you remove the inner primary and have a look but caution it can pop apart if your not care full - look in the parts book at all the small pieces and the lid need to be off to re assemble

 

Here's a long shot stupid simple thing to check: Look to make sure there isn't anything getting in the way of the shifter. My bike has floorboards, not sure about yours, but the shifter can slip down easily since the shaft doesn't have splines.

Of course this happened to a friend of mine, not me.

carl

 

LOL


Me Too!!!!!