Won't go into neutral
 

Well, I've been googling and forum searching for a few hours now and cannot seem to figure out where to start when trying to approach this problem.

I have a naked SV 650 2000. Took a spill on it a week ago, fell on its left side, got it back today. The gear lever is bent towards the bike. It seemed to have started fine, I could put it into first gear and back into neutral a few times, but because it was bent it wouldn't go up (a bar was in its way).

Well, I got the insurance settled so I'm gonna be replacing everything anyway but I figured I'll mess with it a little. I bent the gear lever a little so that nothing was in its way for it to go to second. Now, it clicks into first, second and up but no neutral. Oops! Hehe.

I ordered some new parts already and have been reading through the sv manual but I'm still learning so not sure if I should test it for anything else first or simply take the whole thing apart. Transmission work seems a little tricky and looks like it could be a huge number of things but since it did work at one point, I figure there should be a solid place where I can start. Any advice would be appreciated.

I can afford to take it to a mechanic because of the insurance but I'd really rather just work on it myself. All the other broken pieces I can probably replace without much sweat but this gear thing gets more complicated the more I read up on it.

Alek

OK I know yours is a bit unusual due to accident damage but the usual culprits are:
Too much oil
Badly adjusted chain
Rev the engine to get it into neutral

As Stu says, plus one other "simple thing" to check: I'd add try rolling the bike back and forward a foot or so (as in pushing it forwards, not rocking it sideways) and then rety putting it into neutral. Sometimes when my bike is stationary it seems to get stuck in the gear it's in and spinning the rear wheel a small amount releases it.

I imagine yours is probably something more complex as a result of the spill, but thought it might be worth checking before you take the whole thing to bits!

Best of luck getting it sorted and let us know how it goes.

Weird but it worked! Thanks. It took me a while of rocking it back and forth and switching the gears till it snapped into place. Probably a poorly adjusted gear level as a result of it being squashed. I'll replace it soon.


One other thing, not sure if it's related or not but I noticed it last time I turned it on. There's a strange smell, sulfuric or something coming from the exhaust. It's dark out right now but I noticed some build up on the pipe just now and after I turned it on and ran it for a minute, the stuff started to melt and a little bit of smoke was coming off the pipe. The assessor mentioned something about my exhaust but I haven't received the report yet. I'm not stressing over this since I'm going to upgrade it to a Yosh pipe anyway but just wondering if the smoke thing is normal enough to ride through heh. Oh and there's a weird woooshing sound coming from the bike, too. Kinda like a loud fan. I don't remember it being there last time but maybe I'm just being paranoid.
Not sure if it's related but last time I drove it during rush hour, the red light on the rpm odometer came on after about 30 minutes of going 5-10 mph through traffic. It turned off after I sped away though. But it's a commuter bike so it doesn't seem like it should be a normal thing.

It might be something else, but it's possibly the radiatior cooling fan kicking in when the engine gets too hot. Are you running the bikes engine a lot while it's sat still during repairs? If so, this is a likely cause, keep an eye on the temperature guage (and make sure you're not doing it in an enclosed space! :wink:).

Glad the gearbox thing helped.

If the link bar[little bar above the gear shift lever]is not straight the no neutral syndrome can occur
and I had this happen due to being to heavy footed with the gear change. Remove the bar --straighten--and re-adjust as the gear lever being slightly bent can be compensated for in the adjustment

Nope, I ran it for only a couple of minutes. I'll go work with it some more now that it's daylight, see if maybe it's just the build up due to cold weather. We had a few nights of below C here.

edit: Seems to be ok. Changes gear just fine now. The recommendation above is correct, the gear lever bent the connector stick and it itself is bent on the back to take it out of place a little.

I think the wooshing was done by choke. Though the fan by front filter screen (don't know what it's called, right behind the headlight), is not spinning. Not sure if it's supposed to. There's a circle thing between that screen and the headlight as well, that looks like some kind of a sensor but it's bent out of place.

I think I should just take it to a mechanic and let him tell me what's wrong with it then fix it rather than find out while I'm riding because as it stands right now it looks like I can ride it without any obvious problems.

I had similar problems after my bike was blown over onto the gearlever side, during the gales- finding neutral and going up to third, then seq down, wouldn't go into 1st if I'd managed to get her up into third.

3 things on mine-

1The link rod was bent (straigtened this using hobby vices (!) and my bare hands- ugh!)- though fixing this didn't really make much difference.

2 The chain was loose (the previous rider must have been a little heavier than me...!). Though again, didn't really fix things.

3 The footrest was loose on the hanger (the gearlever pivots on this) and the gearlever practically seized (sat in a dealer's showroom for months?)

Try moving the lever- does the footrest move with it? If so, take the whole unit off the frame (unscrewing the linkage rod while doing this) and tightening the nut up that fixes the pedals to the hanger, while manipulating the lever to ensure it's not too stiff (oo-er!).

If this still doesn't fix it, the rod through the gearbox may have been damaged (possible if your lever was bent in the fall)- see a mechanic/Consult Mr Haynes.