So when a "niece" decided she was getting a bike despite her mums objections, it fell to me to train her up for surviving London roads. Shadowed on the Fazer and the gearbox which had been playing up, decided to break. No more first gear!
That's not so good for traffic...
I have had the engine out a couple of times now. Once to replace the cylinder head (I let a bike shop set the valve clearances and a camshaft came loose!) and once to refurbish the gearbox (too many wheelies and I bent the selector fork).
So I was resigned to ripping it apart to get at the problem. It was an odd problem. Most of the gears and gearchanges were ok but it just wouldn't go from 2nd to 1st. At least not consistently. Sometimes it would go, sometimes it felt like it went in but actually found neutral, sometimes the lever just went floppy.
Before ripping the engine out, I had a quick look at the selector rod which is easily got at from the side. Behind this thing:
It pokes into the gearbox so it gave me a good excuse to change the oil which needs to be drained before removing that part of the crankcase.
...and here is the offending item. It was with some sense of relief I found an odd bit of metal under the cover.
Can't imagine how that chunky bracket broke off. It's only there to retain that tiny little spring. I assume therefore this was a manufacturing issue and it was cracked almost all the way through when it was being made!
Anyhow, rather than facing a £500 odd quid bill to tear down the engine and replace some other gearbox issue which would have written the bike off, I was relieved to throw £25 at eBay for what should be a simple swap repair.
