3 -> 1 shift under moderate braking

I have an 82 KZ750 H3 LTD and I have a problem when downshifting while braking.
Under moderate to heavy braking it is occasionally (maybe 1 in 10 times) going straight from 3rd gear to 1st which has caused some problems with the rear wheel skipping along as I am slowing down due to the mis-matched revs and unexpected extra engine braking.
When I am braking lightly or just changing gears without braking it goes through the gears properly.
Has anybody run into this before?

Of course that will happen. The same thing will happen if you're going 130 mph and you downshift to 1st gear and quickly let out the clutch, or if you slam on the rear brake at that speed. It' s one of those little mysteries of life that no one will ever figure out. :blink:

My point is that it skips second gear entirely sometimes, 3rd gear, one click down, 1st gear.

Sorry, I mis-understood the question. :blush: Ed

I'm certainly no expert at this, but this just should not happen. You should shift down, and it should shift one gear....it sounds like you're accidentally hitting the shifter twice. Maybe something in the shifting mechanism is getting oil on it allowing you to shift when it shouldn't. Like the shifter doesn't need to fully come up to prep for the next shift or something.

You should inspect the shifting pawl mechanism. Hopefully, it's just a spring is worn out or something.

I'd like to take credit for being the problem here because correcting operator error often has little to no cost involved, but I can be almost 100% certain it's not me hitting the shifter twice. The first time it happened I assumed I messed up and somehow forgot what gear I was in, the second time I assumed I had stuttered on downshifting, now I've got it somewhat repeatable and I can verify that I only step down on the peg once and am not being at all ambiguous in my actions when I do.

I was thinking maybe under braking something was shifting around inside the gearbox and causing it to downshift - I've never pulled apart one of these gearboxes so I really don't know if that's even possible. I really thought they were put together with everything side-to-side and braking shouldn't affect them. I was hoping this was a known issue with an easy fix For now I am just extra cautious releasing the clutch when downshifting from third just in case it isn't actually in second gear.