Bad second gear...

hurleyman77 · Sep 17, 2014

Howdy,

('94 US VMax... probably)

If I give any more than about 10-20% throttle in second gear, it... "lurches." It feels like it's coming in and out of gear very quickly, or skipping teeth. Everything I can find says that a bike will never go back into gear once it's come out... but IDK, that's what it seems like.

Occasionally, if I shift to 2nd too fast, it'll get stuck in 2nd. The shift lever won't go up or down and I have to stomp on it to get it back into 1st.

I ran across this thread: http://www.vmaxforum.net/showthread.php?t=35404 but I'm afraid I don't have the experience to understand all of what y'all are talking about.

Again, this is ONLY 2nd gear under hard acceleration. I can put the throttle to the stops in any other gear without any kind of slippage or other problems.

Thanks

hurleyman77 · Sep 17, 2014

Also, I'm thinking about going on a long ride soon. Is this something that'll leave me stranded, or will I be okay so long as I avoid using 2nd gear? It's been doing this for almost a year (now I've got some money to fix it ;-) ) and I've just been going a little high in 1st and skipping straight to 3rd, without any problems.

davesax36 · Sep 17, 2014

If you can skip around it, you're probably good for a while. Remember that 5th is engaged with 2nd,so every time you rattle out of 2,you're beating on the dogs for 5.

95spfldmax · Sep 17, 2014

hurleyman77 said:
Howdy,

('94 US VMax... probably)

If I give any more than about 10-20% throttle in second gear, it... "lurches." It feels like it's coming in and out of gear very quickly, or skipping teeth. Everything I can find says that a bike will never go back into gear once it's come out... but IDK, that's what it seems like.

Occasionally, if I shift to 2nd too fast, it'll get stuck in 2nd. The shift lever won't go up or down and I have to stomp on it to get it back into 1st.

I ran across this thread: http://www.vmaxforum.net/showthread.php?t=35404 but I'm afraid I don't have the experience to understand all of what y'all are talking about.

Again, this is ONLY 2nd gear under hard acceleration. I can put the throttle to the stops in any other gear without any kind of slippage or other problems.

Thanks

I'm afraid you may have the notorious & dreaded "2nd gear problem".

That's how mine went out year before last......started "missing" 2nd gear to neutral a little too often at first........soon enough the "chatter" that I had to "work it" to make it happen...........then happened all the time to short shift to 3rd or bypass 2nd all together........nursed it to end of season.........swapped entire motor cause it was cheaper.........2nd gear happy now..........for now........

Hopefully i'm wrong..............

one2dmax · Sep 17, 2014

I would say the trans dogs are worn for sure. We can help you with the fix though it will require engine removal. You can either do the work yourself and save a lot in labor and shipping or send it here for the complete repair (engine or whole bike too).

You'll have a few options while the work is being done too including an optional overdrive which is a favorite upgrade (a number of forum members on here have that upgrade).

hurleyman77 · Sep 18, 2014

Thanks for the info!

I've got a buddy coming to visit and he and I are going to try to tackle it ourselves. We've both done a lot of various engine work and think between the two of us we could probably figure it out.

That being said, if I were to replace what's broken, what would I be replacing? I've got some money, but I've still gotta do it as cheap as I can.

Thanks again!