Yet another 2nd gear thread

[ZackDaniels]

2006... less than 4000 miles on it. 2000 miles of that are mine.

Got the bike last August, knew about the 2nd gear and put it through some paces without issue. Heading into winter rather than a vBoost filled blast I had a slip a time or two. Changed the oil, no more problems... now it's Spring and twice today it popped out of 2nd and into neutral.

27. My bike pops out of 2nd gear on hard acceleration. What do I do?
Sit down, here comes bad news. Pull the engine, take it entirely apart, split the cases, fix the rounded off 2nd gear dogs, and then put it all back together. There's no easy or quick fix. If a bike you're looking at buying has this problem, run(or get it for very cheap). If you have this problem, contact Sean Morley. There are other goodies you might want to do while it's all apart. If it's not popping out good. To keep it that way, always clutch your 1-2 shift.

I clutch every shift, and I can't believe so few miles means the gear is rounded. Is there no other cause for slipping into neutral? The first time today was hard acceleration and it popped down to neutral so fast after 2nd I thought maybe I just pansy shifted, but the 2nd time was just reasonable acceleration up hill. Was moving along and then pop... into neutral. It was for sure in gear, moving right along, and then it wasn't.

I have a road trip coming up in less than a month :/

 

[naughtyG]

Join the club...

Mine's a 2000 with only 24000 miles, and Kyle put it through its paces before I purchased it - no probs at all.

Then as soon as I started riding it here I felt a few small 'jumps' and then realized it was always in 2nd gear, and only 1000 smooth kilometers later it's completely gone. I can still shift into 2nd, but any power at all even very slight will make it jump into neutral.

I also can't understand how it can go so quickly. I had an '86 in FL, bought with 37,000 miles and sold it with 45k on the clock, never missed a shift. I have another '86 here now, it has electrical problems but again the gearbox is perfectly ok.

And I'm sure I read somewhere that it was the 'early years' that suffered most from the 2nd gear failure, and that Yamaha had 'upgraded parts' to make it more reliable later on.

All data seems to point at the opposite actually - older bikes are fine unless really trashed, newer ones lose their 2nd gear even when looked after!

the good news is, you can still do your road trip! I've forced to ride with no 2nd gear by the electric gremlins of the other bike, and while it's a PITA, it's actually ok. You start in first, run it just a little long, then shift quickly to second and then third, and all is well. Just no power while in second! You'll find it's amazing how slow you can go and still pick up no problem in 3rd..

 

[davesax36]

My '01 had/has a bad second gear. Lots of the new R6s have problems with it, too. It's just a thing that sucks. Good luck with the swap. I'll be making a thread for mine which is coming up soon.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

[one2dmax]

FIRST thing to do is check and adjust the shifter for a bit more positive shift. After that then it MIGHT be time for a trans job. Once they start rounding on the teeth it doesn't take long to get bad.

Sean

 

[ZackDaniels]

Thanks man, I'll give that a try first. The fall out of 2nd yesterday makes me think it's not just a sissy shift, but certainly worth a try and it will be evident if it helps soon enough.

 

[ZackDaniels]

Well, I adjusted the shift pedal to give more manly man shifts and that seems to have solved it. I beat the absolute shit out of the bike today and didn't get a slip on it once.

Maybe it was just a bit too cold out? I never did drop to 10w30 for the winter... I'd say it was just bad shifts and me over-reacting but that one time it was clearly in gear and then slipped. No doubt about it at all.

Open to other ideas about what this might be (or fingers crossed, have been).

 

[one2dmax]

Hopefully you are all resolved!

 

[95spfldmax]

Join the club...

Mine's a 2000 with only 24000 miles, and Kyle put it through its paces before I purchased it - no probs at all.

Then as soon as I started riding it here I felt a few small 'jumps' and then realized it was always in 2nd gear, and only 1000 smooth kilometers later it's completely gone. I can still shift into 2nd, but any power at all even very slight will make it jump into neutral.

I also can't understand how it can go so quickly. I had an '86 in FL, bought with 37,000 miles and sold it with 45k on the clock, never missed a shift. I have another '86 here now, it has electrical problems but again the gearbox is perfectly ok.

And I'm sure I read somewhere that it was the 'early years' that suffered most from the 2nd gear failure, and that Yamaha had 'upgraded parts' to make it more reliable later on.

All data seems to point at the opposite actually - older bikes are fine unless really trashed, newer ones lose their 2nd gear even when looked after!

the good news is, you can still do your road trip! I've forced to ride with no 2nd gear by the electric gremlins of the other bike, and while it's a PITA, it's actually ok. You start in first, run it just a little long, then shift quickly to second and then third, and all is well. Just no power while in second! You'll find it's amazing how slow you can go and still pick up no problem in 3rd..

My 2nd gear gave up last year too. Too many 2nd gear wheely attempts. Now that I think about it that was the downfall of my '86 as well.....hhhmmmm coincidence? :ummm: When mine went it didn't jump totally out of gear but instead would "ratchet" kinda felt like a machine gun going off. It started off innocently enough and progressively got worse throughout the year until I was doing the same thing of short shifting past 2nd to get through the rest of the riding season.

But, can someone confirm if that's true or false about Yamaha doing anything in the following years to beef up the tranny? If so, what years?

 

[Traumahawk]

This was all of the information that I could find, that in 85 2nd gear was beefed up at some point, and in 99 the shift segment was upgraded.

Here's a thread that covers this http://www.vmaxforum.net/showthread.php?t=10938

 

[ZackDaniels]

So traffic today was an absolute bear. Spent about an hour of stop and go between first > second, and a lot more going between them trying to find N once the clutch got warm.

Near the end of the ride it started popping out of 2nd again, which had me bummed out... but then a strange thing happened. It actually jumped up to N from first.

What is this?

:edit:
Neutral is always very easy to find the first 5-10 shifts. Then if those are close together N gets hard to find. From what I read around everybody says that's more or less normal. Confirm/Deny?