I think I'd heard of this before but looks like I'm going to live it first hand. Bike was running fine in 1st & 'Overdrive' but couldnt select neutral or reverse & I did notice a 'springless' feeling the last 2 outings when trying to shift down to neutral. Anyway, dropped my hero Monte's oil (at last!...some might say) and downed the pan. Oil was pretty clean with a film of clutch dust on the pan. No metal filings phew BUT, sitting on top of the pan was a 1/8th rod about 2 inch long. Rang Trevor the Aussie dealer and we deduced it was one leg of the selector shaft 'Tension Spring'. So, raised her up to look under and sure enough saw one leg of the spring missing. Geezer and co will know what I mean.
The whole selector shaft assembly including new spring comes as a replacement kit and Aussie dealer Trevor has one in stock so its on the way. This is all new mechanical territory for me so I'll let you know how I go.
Rob , I have posted this before I think on the other site but I replaced my shifter shaft assembly recently because of a broken spring . The key is to get the bike high enough so you can see what your doing and it looks like you already found that out looking at you picture . In order to get the old shaft out and the new one in you will probably have to bend the oil return line slightly to get the clearance you need . Only bend this line carefully front to rear only and not side to side because if this line cracks or breaks the tranny will have to come out to fix it . The rest of the assembly is more or less straight forward . Just another tip , I believe that one of the reasons this spring breaks is the shifter pedal stops are not adjusted properly thus allowing the spring to be overbent in one direction or another . Adjust the stops so the shifter pedal moves just enough to change gears and no more . The whole project should only take you a couple of hours . Good luck .Hope this helps
VERY useful tips there. You're right about getting the bike high enough - what a pain it is not to have proper lifting equipment but thats not going to change. Thanks for heads-up on the oil line and shifter pedal stops...didnt know about them. Trevor wasnt sure but mentioned that the valve body cover MAY also have to be removed - did you find this to be the case?
BTW Jack, I was thinking of you whilst I dropped the oil as I was wondering when you or one of the other master fabricators were going to design an aftermarket sight glass to replace that poxy little smokey piece of plastic bullshit Rad/Nesco persists with.
Rob.. here is a great post by eastern mike about the sprind replacement. His is an 03 so there are no tubes to get around but still may be of some help.
Here are the steps that worked for replacing the shaft:
1. Drain pan by removing one of the pan bolts.
2. Remove pan from the tranny.
3. While it is draining, (on mine) I removed the left exhaust pipe.
4. Once the pipe is removed, you can take out the 2 set screws holding the shifter linkage to the tranny shaft.
5. Once the linkage is off the shaft, the shaft is held in place by a large 2-sided nut (I used a large crescent wrench) on the outside of the tranny,
just under the shifter linkage you just removed.
6. Once this nut is removed, remove the filter from the tranny to gain access to the shaft.
7. On the bottom of the tranny valve body, you will see a short strip that the left pan bolt bolts down to.
It is attached to the valve body by two allen head screws 3/16" (I think). Remove these two screws, and remove the strip.
This strip will have in it the two holes for the screws, and an elongated hole for the 2 ends of the spring to fit through.
(If your problem is the same as mine, one of the spring ends will be lying in the pan, with only one going through the elongated hole where it supposed to be).
8. If you look up into the shaft area, you will see that the shaft is supported on the inside by a pillar block, which is held by 2 more 3/16" allen head bolts.
These can now be removed, to allow the shaft to come out.
This is a tight fit, and the tube that the filter attaches to must be be GENTLY bent a small amount to allow the shaft to be removed.
This should let the shaft fall from the tranny.
9. The hardest part of replacing the shaft, is getting it worked back into position. The only way I could do this was to GENTLY manipulate the pick-up tube.
(I even called Mark one of the service techs at the factory to confirm this is correct, and he said it was the only way).
On my 2003 B style tranny, I had no problem getting the shaft out, no munipulating anything.
10. Once the new shaft is back into place, installation is in reverse of removal, with the exception that BOTH spring ends go through the elongated hole.
This is what puts pressure on the shaft to return it to the correct position after shifting.
11. When re-installing the nut on the outside of the tranny near the linkage, put teflon tape around the threads to insure that it doesn't leak.
12. Clean filter while it is out, refill the tranny with Mobil MX4T to the proper level.
For me, after replacing the pan and fill up the tranny to the "high" mark on the tranny oil level mark.
Then while still on jack stands, start the Boss and let it get up to normal operating temps, while in gear.
I go through the gears during this time. After the engine operating temps get to 150-160 degrees, run the Boss in gear for about 5 or so minutes.
Turn off the engine, and check the tranny level. Mine is always 1/2 qt or a little more lower now.
I add enough Mobil MX4T to bring it back up to the full level mark.
13. After you smile and pat yourself on the back for completing the task...isn't it time to go ahead and change the engine oil while the Boss is jacked up?
*Note*...change the oil and replace the exhaust pipe before starting the Boss up and getting it to operating temps for the tranny oil top-off.
Thanks for digging that up Tom and I guess Eastern Mike deserves a big pat on the back for taking the time to document it so well. I recall when he posted it but it didnt seem important at the time - haha, how important is it now Aussie?
I got the old selector shaft assembly out. My guess is because these bikes are so low volume that for every time you do this there might be slight variations to the tricks for the fix. I might add to Eastern Mikes 13 step repair method with the following step 5a) before removal of the 'large 2-sided nut' to check if the external portion of the shaft may need a rub with sand paper to get any burrs from the linkage bolts. At the very least it needs to be cleaned as this 'large 2-sided nut' contains a tranny oil seal which could be damaged if forced off over a scratchy shaft.
anyway, so far so good and I havent missed any riding yet because of wet weather
Rob , Shortly after I replaced my shifter shaft I developed a leak around the shifter shaft seal . I have since replaced the seal but I think if I were you I would replace this seal while you have it apart .
Yep, thanks to some quality rebel input and the foresight of Trevor at Pacific Boss Hoss, I am on the road again without missing a beat. Ha, it has barely rained in Sydney for years and the one wet week we have is the week I got my bike up in the air getting fixed...I must have friends in high places ay.
Really appreciate the input & even though he's 1000miles away its great to have a low volume dealer that seems to have every part I ever need in stock, so any other potential Aussie owners that ever come here keep that in mind.
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New one with 2 spring legs closest in pic. They have changed the lever so that it rotates on an allen head pin...that way you can more easily install the shifter shaft assembly THEN install the lever...easy!
Rob , if you look closely you can see how if your foot shifter stops are not set properly how it could put unnecessary stress on the spring right where it comes thru the steel bracket exactly where yours broke .
Precisely Jack and your words were echoing around in my head - last thing I did prior to replacing the pan was eyeball the mechanism and adjust the foot lever stops so they became effective...they werent doing a thing previously which may have been the contributor to the spring braking in the first place. I tend to stomp pretty hard on the gear lever when the lights go green and I been sitting in neutral all dreamy about the yummy mummy on the side walk so its nice to know I'm banging on the frame now and not the cheesy aluminium tranny casing.
Which leads me to a very important heads up for the young players here.
A few years ago I was doing something else under there and removed the 2 main tranny bolts that are located at the underside of the swingarm and found that by doing this the belt tension can actually throw the whole drive train slighly out of misalignment - and when attempting to replace the bolts I found I had cross threaded and needed helicoils. These Nesco tanny casings dont like being bolted and unbolted - the cast aluminium is soft and you need to be extremely careful replacing threaded parts. Cross threading the tranny casing can really ruin your day so always finger starts & never overtighten...stick that in your file Darryl.
Rob , your right about how easily it is to cross thread or strip threads in any alum. part especially cast alum. You want as much thread contact as possible so you should us as long bolt that you can . I even bottom tap holes in alum. when ever possible so I can use as long a bolt as possible and always and I mean always use anti seize on all bolts especially stainless Steel in alum.
As far as the misalignment of your tranny bolts it could be that your bottom engine mounts were not shimmed properly . If the engine mounts are not shimmed properly is creates a stress and miss aligns the tranny bolts at the rear tranny bolt holes and the pulley which in turn throws your belt out of alignment .
hogv8 wrote:Rob , your right about how easily it is to cross thread or strip threads in any alum. part especially cast alum. You want as much thread contact as possible so you should us as long bolt that you can . I even bottom tap holes in alum. when ever possible so I can use as long a bolt as possible and always and I mean always use anti seize on all bolts especially stainless Steel in alum.
As far as the misalignment of your tranny bolts it could be that your bottom engine mounts were not shimmed properly . If the engine mounts are not shimmed properly is creates a stress and miss aligns the tranny bolts at the rear tranny bolt holes and the pulley which in turn throws your belt out of alignment .
Jack
Jack,
Elliots going to hate this change in topic but Fuk him he's getting a new chopper in 3w, 8d, & 25hrs, I loosened the engine mounts and belt when I did that helicoil repair but once fixed I just tightened everything back up. I think it actually happened because I moved the bike a few feet without those bolts in and just threw it out by the smallest margin which was enough to screw me. My belt runs true, never skipped, and never squeaked so I'm going to leave it just the way it is.
You keep on giving us food for thought though Jack
Aussie Rob wrote:Precisely Jack and your words were echoing around in my head - last thing I did prior to replacing the pan was eyeball the mechanism and adjust the foot lever stops so they became effective...they werent doing a thing previously which may have been the contributor to the spring braking in the first place. I tend to stomp pretty hard on the gear lever when the lights go green and I been sitting in neutral all dreamy about the yummy mummy on the side walk so its nice to know I'm banging on the frame now and not the cheesy aluminium tranny casing.
Which leads me to a very important heads up for the young players here.
A few years ago I was doing something else under there and removed the 2 main tranny bolts that are located at the underside of the swingarm and found that by doing this the belt tension can actually throw the whole drive train slighly out of misalignment - and when attempting to replace the bolts I found I had cross threaded and needed helicoils. These Nesco tanny casings dont like being bolted and unbolted - the cast aluminium is soft and you need to be extremely careful replacing threaded parts. Cross threading the tranny casing can really ruin your day so always finger starts & never overtighten...stick that in your file Darryl.
Ok, ok,, i was going to before you said it,,,, but you made me smile!
Mike , the only problem with that idea is you've got to be able to get those studs out if you ever have to remove the tranny . I suppose if you made them long enough so you could double nut them for removal it would work OK .
BUT, sitting on top of the pan was a 1/8th rod about 2 inch long. Rang Trevor the Aussie dealer and we deduced it was one leg of the selector shaft 'Tension Spring'. So, raised her up to look under and sure enough saw one leg of the spring missing. Geezer and co will know what I mean.
