hi everybody

bike is 2002 model, used to run without big issues during the years.
mileage is over 160k kms.

problems started couple weeks ago, pretty sharp and out of nowhere
during the day-long road ride - suddenly felt bit weird and weak
feedback from gearshift pedal.
during / after stopping discovered that switching into gears became
tricky - mostly, in these cases: N > 1, N > 2, 1 <> 2 and 4 > 5.

"tricky" means that sometimes gear changing was not happening at all
and i had to roll the bike a bit, or turn off the engine and then attempt
to change gears. also, sometimes after shifting it would shift back (by
itself!) in previous gear pretty soon.
occasional false neutrals also used to happen.

some further ride showed that this problems used to happen roughly in
the half of the shifting attempts in the above listed cases, while
2<>3<>4 cases were mostly ok, which let me get back to my place.
some other attempts on next days showed that switching was happening
much better when engine was still cold.

before removing clutch cover, was hoping for some wear on the starry
end of selector drum or on the ratcheting mechanism of shift shaft.
but no.
no evident signs of wear.
following 0,04K videos show how the selector drum gets stuck somewhere
between the positions and failing to properly engage gears.






what happens when selector is stuck? no change unless some input from
rear wheel or engine.

as a last hope, fitted another stopper lever with much bigger roller
(spare from other model), but still no success.




seems i'm facing some major problem with unknown extent, involving
splitting the case and then who knows..

are there any clues what to expect? or what might be the reason?

do you have a magnetic oil drain plug? could be interesting to see if you have abnormal debris on it


if not, drain the oil into a really clean container and drag a magnet in it.


try refilling it with th ebest synthetic you can get and see if it makes a difference...



have you dropped the bike on the left side? sometimes it can bend the shift shaft a bit and add friction.


want to assumes that clutch disengages properly.


take off all the plates and check that the inner hub rotates freely

My experience on the 4pt vs 3tb is that its really sensetiv on the adjustment on cable. Never had problem on the 3tb dropping and not going in 1, but happend with the 4pt before i adjustet 100%, had problems gearing down when clutch in 3gear. Changed clutch believed i had solved problem, but the suddenly back and all ok after adjust clutch cable.

turboguzzi, thanks for clues/advices.

yes, plug has attached pretty decent neodymium magnet.
used to see some <1mm particles, but rarely. more common material mined there is just small amount of very fine dust around the perimeter of magnet. signs of normal wear i suppose.

dropped? of course but not this year yet. engine protector partially protects the shift lever. guess the rest of the impact must be absorbed by the flexibility of lever. remember, had to re-shape it back to normal couple times, with the force of the hands only.
still good clue about shift shaft, will note for that judgement day of splitting the case...

inner hub rotates freely.

but...
in fact, clutch has never been easy, even while pulling the lever completely there still was some interference. during the years, fingers on my left gloves used to wear first, but was completely used to this, assuming that clutch on these bikes is not light.

now more important but:
clutch plates were not put in proper order.
guess i know who's the culprit: that very person who was yours truly several years ago, when replacing the clutch with no bike-specific knowledge at all. followed the advice of bit more (but not sufficiently) experienced friend and placed the different friction plates first and last.
later, when became aware of this mistake, used to postpone this task since it worked to the degree what could be considered as "normal".
wrong.

the result is uneven wear along the layers and some wear on pressure plate as well.

could this be the reason? wish so much to be.

at least having some plan for now - assembling the clutch properly (still in working condition), good synth and let's see. if it will work, new pressure plate and clutch kit will be the next priority.

thanks again and will update when there'll be news.
- - - - - - -
read this just now.
thanks for another clue, will pay attention to cable as well when bike will be ready.

well, after some time and around 500 kms there's something to share.

bike is rideable - that's best thing to start with.
clutch was re-assembled in proper order.
also, this time paid more attention on alignment of gears of axle and push rod (these xts' have clutch shift mechanism on the right side). the result is perpendicularity of clutch cable and pull lever (while clutch is being engaged), thus giving the best leverage.
and suddenly clutch gets much softer.
and, more importantly, i could select the gears normally!

from the beginning, clutch used to get slippery, then i had to feed down the cable. some more time, again slippery, bit more adjustment... it happened several times, with quickly decreasing rate.
the reason seems to be some groovy wear on pressure and some friction plates: after re-arrangement this grooves met with flat surface, resulting much less area of contact to wear first and quick.
anyways, already got new clutch kit, now waiting for pressure plate to arrive.

since the assembly, gearbox downshifted from 5th to 4th only once, and one false neutral has happened.
only remaining (or transformed) problem is that now it's neutral to find hard, but it reminds about itself mostly during longer red traffic lights only.

thus, for now the issue is not completely solved, although, it's no more big issue at least.
really didn't expected that proper order of clutch plates could make such essential difference (considering that new oil and better alignment of axle gears are secondary factors).
the time will tell how it will be after new clutch and pressure plate, as well as proper cable adjustments after break-in...

cheers!

Its something strange, mine is perfect some days and others a mess. Seems like problems is worst when you do a emergency stop in high gear, i need to drop clutch a little to get it to gear down. On normal riding its never a problem, hard to tell whats out of sync.

well, so far there're just couple things in which i've became certain - be it shifting problems or clutch slipping, it was less likely to happen on colder engine in my case. also, proper order of clutch plates, alignment of push rod & lever, and cable adjustment all make big difference how gearbox behaves.

stopping in high gears was also bit tricky for me as well - even before problems mentioned in the first post, gearbox sometimes not completely followed series of quick downshifting inputs. for now, after re-assembling the clutch, don't remember if i had to do this so far.