My Bike Won't Shift Very
Well
By Jerry Matta
It all started when I broke my counter shaft,
which also took out a few gears,

all my tranny bearings and my right center case. This could have been very
expensive, about $500 or so. Luckily my buddy had a lower-end lying around
that I bought for $100. A good deal, At least I thought it was.
After I switched out all the parts, I notice that every so often my transmission
wouldn't shift at high revs. To make matters worse it would also pop out
of gear. This is not a good thing when doing doubles at Elsinore. So
I took it apart again and I had Jimmy (Lewis) look at it. He found nothing.
Everything looked fine. I knew it had to be something, so since it mainly
did this between second and third, I bought a new shift fork, and second and
third gears for both the main shaft and counter shaft. And $200 later, it
actually helped a little, but not really. I just tried to convince my self
that did, because I spent so much money. Well, after missing shifts and popping out
of gear again, I bought a new shift star and shift shaft. This
really did improve my shifting and confidence in my motor, but it didn't 100%
fix the problem. However, sometime later at Carlsbad I broke my crankshaft
in half. So one long Saturday afternoon as I was putting together the bottom
end, I noticed something a little strange. The section on the right center
case where the shift fork dowel goes through and butts up against the case was
worn out. Very worn out!! At least by .125". This came as a
shock because I never even thought about this before and I've been doing this
for a while now. As soon as I noticed it, I knew this was the real reason it
wouldn't shift and why it shifted before my tranny blew, but not after.
You can see clearly in the picture (click on the picture) a bad it is worn
out. And this is one thing to think about when buying a used motor.
However, since I noticed it after my bottom end was already together, I figured I would
fix it next time my motor was apart.