Lost 6th Gear

Hi All, first time on the forum & need some help.
Was cruisin on the morotway at 85mph (I think) when suddenly the bike poped out of 6th gear, no noise, no rattle.... 1st to 5th works fine but now cannot select 6th, it is like neutral, bike just revs.. Can anyone help?

[Dave20046]

Checked your chain tension recently?
How many miles has the bike done?
What bike is it infact?

SV650 2002, 13700 miles, 1-1/4 inch play in chain

[Dave20046]

Is movement in the actual lever itself good? (smooth, precise)

I know the whole assembley can get gunged up

I've had this before myself, you just need to adjust this where the arrow is:

[DarrenSV650S]

I've lost 7th

6th is over rated.

Tests have shown that if you sit cruising in 6th you are clinically ghey and not trying hard enough

Now we are mentioning it, I've lost reverse too

[jambo]

Have you checked in the tool box? I find more random stuff there...

Aaaaaannnyway. Assuming you'd like to get to the bottom of this my first thoughts would be:
1) Check the usual suspects, chain tension, oil level, clutch adjustment, free moving of gear lever on pivot. Frankly your issue sounds a little too specific, and I'd expect 1st to 5th to be variously awkward if any of this was wrong, but please make sure you are happy that the clutch and gear lever etc are actually moving as you'd expect. Pretty embarassing to go heading off down difficult and complex paths, and then find the gear lever was sticking and not returning fully...

2) I am assuming that 1st to 5th engage smoothly, cleanly, that it does not get progressively more difficult to engage higher gears, and that the bike has not recently been involved in anything traumatic, like a drop / crash?

3) Unless anyone has any brainwaves, my next thought would be to have the right-hand engine case off. You'll probably need to drain the coolant, and oil to do this, and you may need to remove the clutch to see what you want to. The part I'm considering suspect is the Detent shift star. On occasion someone has managed to have one point of this star shear off, meaning the gear shift mechanism can't lock into place and just spins back to the next position (gear) down. The trouble with my theory is it's quite a lot of work to check it, so you want to be very sure that all is well with the basics first.
There is, however, an excellent article taking you through the procedure on the BARF site here

Which should show you which bit I'm on about.
The entire shift schematic is shown on the Ron Ayers microfiche here. The Detent shift star is part #10.

Like I say, get very certain about your clutch adjustment, oil level, and free movement of the gear lever first, as this check is rather intrusive. I hope someone else has a better theory.

All the best,

Jambo

Edit: The original BARF post makes it more obvious how to inspect this removing only the clutch cover (as is possible on 99-02 bikes) here

[Spanner Man]

Good morning all.


Remove the gearchange mechanism, apart from the bit that locates on the gearchange shaft. Then get an assistant to rock the bike back & foreward, or have the bike on a paddock stand, & use the rear wheel. See if you can select all the gears, (make sure you turn the shaft the correct way).
If you cannot select 6th gear whilst rotating the shaft by hand then I agree with Jambo, in that it's most likely to be a problem with the detent stopper plate (as Suzuki call it). It could also be a problem with the arm on the gearchange shaft that actuates the stopper plate.

Quite rightly as Jambo says this is a time consuming job, so eliminate all other possibilities before diving in.


Cheers.