Another shifting Q?

I have been having these shifting problems recently, before I had my bike torn apart and well I will ride on the high way and I would be able to shift all the way to 5th sometimes, but when I am on the st. I doesn't want to go over 2nd at slower speeds. I took the shift cover off to check inside and everything looks fine. I turned the output shaft to simulate the sprocket turning and it shifted through all the gears. What was wrong with it is that I had a bad chain with a rough spot in it and a fairly bad front sprocket.....rear sprocket not too bad. And since that chain had that spot in it I didn't tighten it as much as it should been or at all since it started clunking like it is out of line somewhere, so I kept it so slack that the top round of the chain hit the swing arm and the bottom would slap on the center stand. So question is would a slack chain cause the transmission not to shift?

I'm not a tranny guy (ok, let's hear it!:woohoo: ) but I wouldn't think the bad chain would effect shifting. The bad chain (had one) makes the bike feel bad and after new sprockets and chain was a whole new bike. The tranny does not know whether the chains good or bad.

I noticed the gear position lever would not go down into shift position unless I was turning the sprocket shaft. could that be a problem?

Sounds backwards, Kawasaki 650 trannys (at least in '80) will not go into 2nd unless sprocket is turning. :blink:

Did forget to mention that this is my 81 1000?

Didn't they all share Kawasaki's exclusive nuetral finder?

Yeah they have a nuetral finder.

still have a problem with shifting here guys! I can only get the bike to shift if I am riding fast and it wouldnt go into first gear, plus when I shift down or up the shifter stays down, doesn't come back up to its spring loaded position. I rode the bike with a broken clutch cabe and after that nothing was right

maybe its time to look at shift forks, the shift drum, shift shaft, and external shift mechanism(and associated springs).
even my 12r has the same type of neutral finder, i think they all have the same thing. its just 3 balls that need to be flung outwards due to centrifugal forces so they dont jam the gear on the shaft.
if you were driving without using the clutch, god only knows how much damage you did. grinding gears, smashing into gears downshifting....

(I just wrote this for a newer Ninja, so it is close. So you know, your motor is 99% the same as mine)

Mine is doing the same thing. For me, it is a problem with the gear shift mechanism, being it is bent. I know how I did it, and how to look at it, but not familiar with your model. Shoot, all should be the same.

Your shifter is connected to a shaft that comes out of the transmission. On my bike there is a cover you can remove which accesses this shaft and the front sprocket, among other things. This was probably removed by the dealer for just that purpose, to check chain and sprocket wear.

The cover acts as a support for the shifter shaft: the shifter puts alot of pressure on the shaft sticking way out in free space. So if you do like I did, and shift the tranny with the cover off, you can bend that shaft, like I did.

Or if the cover was reinstalled to where there is a bind in the shaft: hopefully.

So here is how you can find out: 1) Make sure you see how the shifter attaches to the shaft position wise, remove the pinch bolt and remove the shifter 2) remove the cover 3) Temporarily reinstall the shifter and see if it returns to center without the cover on it, not putting a lot of force on it, return to center should be really obvious. On mine, it is. IF it works, see how it may bind when reinstalling the cover. For me, the bolt holes on the cover won't line up perfectly unless the cover is pressing the shaft.

If it won't return to center with the cover off, let me know. We can look at the diagrams and see if this is a major. On my bike, I can remove the shaft w/o pulling the motor, so straightening it out will be accomplished off of the bike. maybe. I am thinking about trying to get a backup and straightening out the original on the bike, saving me some time and a gasket. But don't worry about that until you make sure the cover isn't just misaligned somehow.

And for me with a center stand, I can start the bike and run through the gears with the cover off, but not with it on.

Good luck.

I left the cover on, the one with the clutch adjuster I left on. Well 77kz650, I checked the shifting with the shift cover off to see how it operated and the shift pall on top of the ratcheting pins, sometimes doesn't engage. While the cover was off I spun the output shaft and shifted the transmission and it went through with the shifts then the pall wouldn't engage sometimes. But mostly the shifter does not return to center. As I said if I really speed up, it shifts. I need more help fellas