Tranny (shifter) bokerforked (Found: star cam broke off the shift drum!)

But is it exactly centered in neutral, or a little bit to one side or the other but not far enough to engage first or second? I'm thinking I could still get it enough out of exact that once set, my "in gear" is just barely in gear, the dogs not fully engaged. With only 30 degrees of rotation between neutral and a gear.....

I'm all for not swapping motors, and it would seem to be a simple thing to re-attach a single part, but I'm totally paranoid about having it in the right place.

Look at it this way wfooshee, as it stand right now your engine is usless/dead/unusable and needs to come out of the frame. If you try a low dollar fix like welding and it fails, you are not really worse off. If you try to fix the star using the Townsend method and it works, sing the Happy Happy Joy Joy song, pop open a celebratory beverage and smile a lot. If it fails like you worry it may -- well heck, you are already resigned to a motor and cylinder head swap. I say to rub that lucky rabbits foot, pray to what ever deity you hold dear and go for it with the welder.

Walt,

I can understand your fear, that indexing the shift drum to "neutral" and attempting to weld the star wheel in the corresponding "neutral" position could possibly be off a degree or two (or ten).

But how about if you, instead, index the drum to "first" and then simply match the star wheel to the "first" gear indentation?

I assume the shift drum can't move in the "negative" direction? So if you "bottom out" the shift drum's rotation in the first gear position, it can't rotate any further than "up", so placing the star wheel in the correct position should be a snap. Essentially, I'm suggesting NOT using "neutral" as your positioning index, but using first gear instead.

Now, if the shift drum WILL continue to rotate past first gear (?) then my suggestion is pointless, but I'm assuming it won't.

wfooshee said:

I like the thinking, and it's similar to but better than my original idea of a center bolt into the shaft. But see, the whole issue, just as with having it re-welded, is that I have NO position reference without the scar on the inside of that weld face.Right now I can set the thing on the shaft, turn it a bit this way and that, and it practically clicks into place.

I could try marking its position somehow, but ANY error is going to ^$@* up my shifting permanently by putting the cam in the wrong position relative to the shift drum. If the cam settles any amount not dead on, the gear dogs will be slightly removed from the right position, not fully and completely engaged.

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Wfooshee,

Okay, I'm no expert, just a spectator here. I agree with your idea about missed alignment, entirely. I think it is a simple matter of grinding MOST of the welding off the face of the star, but leaving ALL of the rear of the welding intact, just reduced to paper-thin metal. This grinding work would need a Dremel tool or similar, because it must be done carefully, in small areas, without heating the star's old welding too much. It will need a light and quick touch. Do the grinding with the star set on a wet sponge, and keep the sponge wet. You want to remove metal, without deforming the rest of the metal. Grind a little bit here, a little bit there, until the job is done. Do not grind in any one place very long, and don't grind near the last place, which is still hot. This part of the job will take patience and persistence.

If the grinding is done well, the star would still "click" into place on the shaft, just as it does now., Put the star on the shaft, clicked into place, and hold it there firmly with a wooden paint paddle (stirring stick). Have a welder put a spot of welding on one side of the shaft. WAIT until cool. Then hold the star in place with the wooden stick again. Have the welder put another spot of welding on the other side of the hole. When cool, add two more spots, between the first two. The welder will be welding right through the paper-thin metal, onto the shaft. Then have the welder do the job completely, in the conventional manner. The angle of the star on the shaft will be correct, then. The paper-thin old weld material will just vanish into the new welding beads.

I realize that the hardest thing is getting any welder to sit idle; unless they have the job moving, they act like they are not getting paid. Tell the welder that the pay is by the hour, and you are paying to have them wait until the job cools completely, after each spot. Easy does it.

Feel free to disregard this method, of course, but if that shaft is hollow now, maybe it should still be hollow, when you are done. HTH.

Cheers,

Red

ionbeam said:

Look at it this way wfooshee, as it stand right now your engine is usless/dead/unusable and needs to come out of the frame. If you try a low dollar fix like welding and it fails, you are not really worse off. If you try to fix the star using the Townsend method and it works, sing the Happy Happy Joy Joy song, pop open a celebratory beverage and smile a lot. If it fails like you worry it may -- well heck, you are already resigned to a motor and cylinder head swap. I say to rub that lucky rabbits foot, pray to what ever deity you hold dear and go for it with the welder.

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Makes sense, but have I missed something in following this thread?
Why, instead of doing a motor and head swap with the healthy part of Howie's lump, wouldn't wfoshee simply pirate the shift drum from Howie's lump and avoid, at the least, the head swap? I haven't been inside an FJR tranny, but is the required tranny work more labor and $$ intensive than all that's involved with swapping the head?

exskibum said:

...I haven't been inside an FJR tranny, but is the required tranny work more labor and $$ intensive than all that's involved with swapping the head?

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YES3.

First gear, yes, thinking about it would be best.

And no, the shifter drum has groves cut in it for the shifter forks and will only rotate so far, (you can't go past first)

And I very much agree, with a previous post, grind down most of the old weld (from the outside). Leave just enough to hold it flush (as original).

How it broke it off, will likely fit back in like a key, some low and high spots. You should be able to feel when its back in its intended spot. That's exactly where you want to be..

The welder would (should know it), with the drum being a rotating part(with an oil film) as its sits, your going to have to somehow ground the "star" to the welder, NOT to the bike. Should you hook up to the bike itself, and he gets a ground, there WILL be a small ground tach weld somewhere else. May or may not be an issue depending on where it is.

To eliminate the entire above scenerio, using a steel rod, BOTH as a ground for the welder and the holder to hold the star in place (the "lucky holder" would have to be wearing insulated gloves.

IME, the preferred method (as long as everything lines up exactly).

If you already have that drum already threaded, and can get the star screwed on to the drum (after confirming the star fits like a key-EXACTLY) would be much easier as it is tight in there.

BTW, when that part was initially welded, it was likely done on a jig so everythings lined up and welded by machine . If you need to tack first, that's fine. But for the final weld, you'll get a better weld having one continuious bead (as original) for full penertration.

I'm way late to this party, and admittedly, I haven't read every post carefully. But Wfooshee - just so you know, Patriot's motor is completely disassembled and is sitting in my attic with in Ziploc bags with parts oiled down. All of the transmission parts are still available and if you need, they are yours for the great low price of FREE. I just need an address to send them to - I can ship them tomorrow if you want.

Just let me know - cheers, my friend.

Damn, 'pants...that's a helluvan offer.

If I was in Walt's shoes, my feet would hurt...

...and I'd "consider" splitting the case and swapping out the shift drum.

Other than cobbling up some type of welding fix, the motor's got to come out with either a tranny parts swap, or a bottom end swap with a donor lump. Hmmmmmm....decision time.....for Mr. Fooshee, that is!

I would be concerned that whatever FUBAR'd that star in the first place will FUBAR the next one. I'm all for the welding fix, but if I was gonna replace anything, I would split the cases and get my chance to inspect those parts to see if I could figure out what the Hell went wrong.

Lots of advice and seems like a few options. Good luck with whichever way you go. I'll give you moral support if you need.

Another vote for splitting the case in the original motor at this point, so long as Walt doesn't want to try to weld/pin the star wheel in place. I've split mine twice so far, it's not too challenging. 10 new main bearing bolts, 5 or 6 new gaskets, a few new o-rings, oil & coolant and you're back on the road again. This way also gets you the ability to have a looksee at your old trans, and anything else that probably isn't going wrong on the inside.

Pretty sure pulling the head off requires pulling the motor anyway, requires 10 new head bolts, at least 1 new gasket, new o-rings, etc. There's a bunch of work ahead of him either way, and it's a good reason to increase his tooling budget if need be.

rPGoatBoy said:

There's a bunch of work ahead of him either way, and it's a good reason to increase his tooling budget if need be.

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Hehehe - exactly! Clearly written by another twisted tool slut who probably can't get out of a hardware store without buying some [not exactly needed] tool that is prominently displayed and on sale.

exskibum said:

rPGoatBoy said:

There's a bunch of work ahead of him either way, and it's a good reason to increase his tooling budget if need be.

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Hehehe - exactly! Clearly written by another twisted tool slut who probably can't get out of a hardware store without buying some [not exactly needed] tool that is prominently displayed and on sale.

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Well, if it's on sale, we save money by spending money. At least that's what I tell my wife!!

HotRodZilla said:

...Well, if it's on sale, we save money by spending money. At least that's what I tell my wife!!

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That's what my wife says to me.

I once asked her to show me the money she'd saved.

Not a wise move on my part .

As for what made it happen in the first place, I was very concerned about that, too. I have been able, by grabbing the shift drum shaft with big pliers and keeping the rear wheel turning, to move the tranny through the first three gears back and forth. It's in first right now as it sits. Operation is smooth, nothing seems to resist moving.

When this happened, I was downshifting from 3rd to 2nd, and I wonder if I did something stupid like kick it down real hard without the clutch but with a good bit of throttle, sort of the opposite of a missed shift? I do remember being really annoyed with traffic......

This thing should not has winkle out under any circumstances!!Do not think at all that it was your mistake!I am pretty sure that were hardware failures and poor gluing!

Μy opinion is that,if you are happy with your engine,must decide to open it and install a new spare part ''not cheap $150''or a used one from Patriot's engine or a something like that..You will need some gaskets and some bolts.Perhaps if someone from the forum lives near you,could help you in a weekend..

Status update. Just got the motor out. Last week I got the radiator and exhaust off, which was FAR easier than I expected. I've never tried to remove an exhaust system that didn't have HUGE issues getting the hardware loose. NO PROBLEM with these things! All eight fasteners at the head spun right off, and the two hanger bolts under the bike were even easier. Maybe an hour from draining the coolant to the picture:



So then yesterday was the motor..... I put all the crap I'd removed during the problem search back together so that the cases weren't open and I wouldn't be dropping anything into the crankcase.

(That said, while buttoning it up, I did drop a socket and a bolt, two separate drops, not together, into the crankcase. I'd like to ask for a moment of silence in respect for the inventor of the telescoping magnet stick!!!)

So the bike is buttoned back up with bodywork still off, no intake or exhaust or cooling, all the bolts placed back into the place they go (instead of trying to mark them in baggies,) and I plan my setup.

I'm working by myself, I have nothing with which to rig a hoist to get the frame off the motor, so I start taking stuff off with an idea to plan something as I go and hope for the best.

Bike is on the centerstand in the garage, with the centerstand on a pair of 2x4s for height. I removed the rear wheel and the drive shaft, which is all you have to do to free the engine mechanically from the bike. I put a board under the oil pan and jacked it up there, then I removed the front wheel and forks for clearance to the engine, and found that I could press down on the back of the bike and lift the front quite easily at that point. I stuffed the rear axle into the rear wheel, then put the stub of the axle into the swingarm, making a single-sided swing arm out of it. (Final drive is off, remember.) There's not going to be any serious weight on the wheel, it's just going to keep the bike from rocking too far back. Remember the centerstand is elevated about 3 inches or so. I put the top case on and put four bricks in it as a counterweight.

Disconnect electrical connections to the engine (easy checklist in the service manual) then start removing bolts (again, easy checklist.) Lowered the jack as far as it would go under the motor, then grabbed the frame and raised it. The motor tilted forward a bit as the frame came up, so I braced that with some more scrap lumber and tried again. Tilt the frame up, roll the motor forward. Engine out by myself, no lifting!!!!!

With the engine out of the way, I put the front end back on, then removed the hacked rear wheel, replaced the final drive and installed the rear wheel correctly, now I can roll the lightweight bike out to the shed to get it out of the way.







I have the parts on hand from hppants, salvaged from Patriot's bearing-failure motor, and I haven't been able to retrieve Radiohowie's motor, despite having coworkers in central Florida on two separate occasions, both equipped with contact information and vans. There's one more shot at that coming up soon, which if unsuccessful will force me to make the trip down and back myself.

Swapping the head from my motor to his should be much easier than turning this thing over and splitting the case, but OTOH I have the needed parts here on hand, including the shift drum and 2nd and 5th gears (and shift fork, just in case, to correct the skipping-under-load that I, too, have begun to experience in second gear.) But 31 bolts!!! 10 of which are stretch bolts and have to be new. And no gasket, but sealant. Which makes separation and cleaning a bit odd, I'm guessing. That's where Ionbeam's earlier answer about head swap vs split case comes from.

Quite impressive. I'm almost certain I could get to where you are now. It's at this point where I get stumped - that whole "putting it back together" part.

Regardless.... subscribed.

Excellent!Good luck!

Good work!