Stuck in 1st???

i was looking at a xj650 seca for sale. The bike is pretty cheap and looks to be in over all good shape. But the bike is stuck in first gear. Generally what does this mean? The bike has about 30k miles on it. I'm thinking that it's a broken chain guide. The seller has no clue other then stuck in first. Idk. If I go check it out is there a way to make sure the transmission is good? Is there any red flags that say stay away that I should look for. I don't mind doing some work but I'd rather not by a bike then have to get a new engine/trans.

Thanks for reading.

Jim

 

I think I have read here on the forum, that it could be a broken spring. not really expensive and easy to replace. but if it is a high mileage bike, broken chain guides are not out of the question. both can be checked by removing the left side cover. I think you might find some info on the subject here...

http://www.xjbikes.com/forums/index.php?forums/xj4ever-supporting-vendor.23/

check in the catalog for the tranny (lots of useful info in the catalogs), the information overload hour and or the last one, talking tech.

CN

 

If you are lucky it will only be the broken spring like cyclenoob says, but my money is on the broken chain guide (aka primary chain guide or starter chain guide). Very common on these bikes. There are some tricks to get it to shift so you can get home (lean the bike over slightly to the right, take off the left side cover, look through the little inspection hole, and use a sharpened screwdriver to break up the little pieces of plastic that are binding in the transmission) but that should only be considered a very temporary solution. You need to replace that guide.
The good news is that the part itself is pretty cheap, and available. The bad news is that you have to pull the engine and split the cases to get at it. If you are comfortable doing that, and the rest of the bike is in good shape, you could end up scoring a great deal on the bike.

 

30,000 miles and a broken chain guide already? I would hope that's not the case.

My bet is broken spring in the clutch-lever mechanism. Bigfitz52 has talked about it before; he refers to it as a "mousetrap". See this thread http://xjbikes.com/forums/index.php?threads/shifter-wont-reset-click.47070/

 

My bike was advertised as having a "blown engine". 4 hours and no parts later it runs like a champ. I like checking for simple stuff first. Stand it up and rock it hard fore and aft a few times with the gear engaged, then pull in the clutch and try to shift it. Ya never know. But I have owned two bikes that each got "stuck in first" once. Rocked them free of it and rode them for thousands more miles with no problems. I am not qualified to say how that can be but I do know that it happened to me. Twice. Then again, it might very well be one of the things described above. Good luck.

 

Thanks for the info and replies. I'll check it out.

 

Hey guys, I have the same issue on a XJ 650 seca. I tried to look through the inspection hole and it looks like there is a huge chunk of the chain guide floating around. I was wondering if I would need to take the engine out to replace the chain guide? Or if there were more issues with the transmission and it needed to be repaired or replaced, is that something that requires you to take out and crack open the engine?

 

You will need to pull the engine, open the cases, and inspect the internals. You can get by for a short time if you remove the chunks of broken guide, but there will be more damage done (specifically to the $99.00 oil jet that the chain will rub on without the chain guide in place) in the meantime. Do not attempt to do the job without both the factory service manual and the Haynes service manual. Also you should start a thread for your bike. There will be other things that you will need help with, and keeping it to a single thread will help the process of making your bike a reliable and safe machine.

 

Thanks for the response, k-moe.

 

Something else to look at.... this was the problem with the bike I bought. Under the clutch cover on the end of the shift drum is a part Yamaha calls the segment. It's held on with a phillips head screw. The head of the screw had snapped off and the segment separated from the shift drum. Bike was stuck in gear. Cost me all of 75 cents to fix it.