whats the worse that could happen?

troutbishop

troutbishop

Hero member
Location
Worcestershire England
A friend of mine has just phoned and told me he has had a little mishap with his 750 because the gearchange is on the opposite side to his Guzzi instead of braking he stomped his foot on the gearchange and is now having trouble getting gears if any . So what could be the worse that could happen?
he is bringing it round some time in the week for me to look at.
 
Sell the Guzzi, problem solved.

He may have damaged something but I would have thought it unlikely.
It never affected the gearchange in my first few days of ownership of my first Laverda in 1979 when I inadvertantly pressed the gear lever instead of brake. Not even sure it changed down a gear.
Maybe he stamped on it, if so I guess a clutchless shift would have happened. Lots of noise but hopefully no shearing or grinding occurred in the box.
 
Kev, the worst that could have happened could be pretty bad (sheared engagement dogs, broken gear teeth, bent shafts, some or all of the previous) but they would all have been accompanied by very loud noises of devastation from the gearbox. I'm hoping the gearshift just wasn't adjusted right when he got the bike and it's still not right.
Another possibility is that the selector detente tension spring broke (see part 33 at http://www.laverda-paradies.de/shop/catalog.php?lng=en&cat=750&chp=08), which is a piddling little spring, Andy Wagner wants less than 10 Euros for it, but when it breaks it will give you the symptoms you describe. Any bike but a Laverda, 1/2-2 hour job replacing it. Laverdas (except 120s), it's motor out, bottom case off, and then you get into "while I'm at it", which never ends unless you're very strong-willed.
Good luck, hope it's just adjustment.

Ken
 
As Stefan says, check it from inside the selector cover first, rocking the back wheel and see how it selects. The next step I?d do is to take off the whole selector case which exposes the countershaft sprocket. This can be done laying the bike a long way over to keep the oil in; but you might want to drop the oil to check if any metal is in there for peace of mind in this case. Get something which firmly grips the geared shaft which turns the selector plate inside the gearbox and do the same thing, rocking the back wheel. If the gears all select doing this, he may have just whacked the selector eccentric adjustment out of alignment or bent/damaged something in the selector case. The gearbox is very sensitive to the eccentric adjuster, it must allow for equal movement both up and down. If it won?t select gears moving the selector plate inside the gearbox it?ll have to come apart.
An example of the strength of SF gearboxes. Someone I know who raced a sidecar used valve bounce as a rev limiter and when it lost power at valvebounce he smashed in the next gear clutchless still at full throttle. The bike never complained. So here?s hoping it is something simple for you.
 
Someone I know who raced a sidecar used valve bounce as a rev limiter and when it lost power at valvebounce he smashed in the next gear clutchless still at full throttle. The bike never complained. So here?s hoping it is something simple for you.

Steve B, no, I don't know Tippie and have never raced a sidecar...................... but it sounds like my gearchanging practices have been copied by someone overseas! :LOL:
 
I had a simlar problem on my 750 caused by starting it without taking the socket spanner off the end of the starter cluch, bike fired and swung the spanner round which impacted the gear change lever (I am not such a good mechanic as I think I am). After that could not select any gears. On removing the gear selector cover it was obvious what the problem was - had snapped the end off the selector arm - part number 8-29 from http://www.laverda-paradies.de/shop/catalog.php?lng=en&cat=750&chp=08 . A quick call to Red and he had one in the post same day and the bike was fixed the next day. Hope this helps and you problem is as simply fixed.

Chris
 
chrisoz has had an experience like mine:

Greg Parish and myself had been working on my Jota, we were putting the cams in position with a ring spanner, Greg with cam chain in hand ready to fit it to the sprockets when I had them in position, when said spanner slipped and ricochet off the shed roof and we spent and age trying to find it, this happened a couple of times, the last time we heard it hit something and both covered our heads with our hands and waited for the "ping" as in hit the floor or us.............................................  No "ping"...???

We searched for what seemed like hours, in desperation I looked down the camchain tunnel, there was something shiny down there .................... we both looked at each other, with the look of "what the"?? A bit of wire with a hook, touched the top of the spanner, ca-chink it dropped down into the depths even further!!! What are the chances?
 
Chris, there was a posting on Laverdapedia a few years ago, a photo of a Sidchrome 10/11mm open end spanner that was retrieved from a lower triple crankcase during maintenance, property of DPO.
It sorta makes me wonder, how many of us have honestly never dropped anything down that cavernous pit trap? It's like a small part magnet, or maybe the mass of all the alloy has a gravitational effect, sucking everything in :D :D.

Ken
 
... almost the same for me - after hitting the gear shift and stuffing that the spanner shot off into the far reaches of the shed - fortionately not damaging anything too valuable and was only found by chance several months later.
 
...and while we're waiting for the gearbox diagnosis....

1000/3C_Stefan said:
As most people pull instintivly the clutch lever in those kind of situations,
Click to expand...

Which is the wrong thing to do as you're more likely to lock the rear wheel if you do this, rendering braking less effective IIRC.

I spent a happy afternoon testing emergency stop techniques on other peoples' Hondas a few years ago.

We "proved" [1] this by stopping to a stall with the clutch out. Stalls the engine, but you might still be alive??

HTH

H.

[1] "proved" in the sense of a bunch of under utilized motorcycle instructors 4rsing about on the schools CB500s [2] on a sunny afternoon
[2] note - CB500s - not sure what would happen on a turbocharged Hayabusa with the throttle still open in this instance [3]
[3] someone lend me a turbocharged Hayabusa........I'll let you know :)
 
So you stall the engine and the child/car moves from your path but you can not pull away from the 38 tonner with all it's wheels locked up bearing down behind you............. :o
 
Nononono. We were stalling the stop just to prove the point, i.e. a full emergency stop without using the clutch at all. The superb, multi-talented heroes on this forum will all just whip in the clutch at the very last minute - as opposed to when you first apply the brake.

I *could* say - so then pull away from the 38 tonner, sharpish, when yer in 4th gear....but that would be bitchy...

H.
 
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