SV650 difficult to get into neutral.

just a note..mine was like this last week, no matter what i tried i could not get it into neutral when stoped at lights, and to get into when stationary so i could wheel it into parking spot i had to turn the engine of and find neautral that way....

i gave it an oil and oil filter change...never done before and was a bit worried of messing up...but was so simple..took about 10mins..most of that spent waiting for the old oil to drain out....the result was instant and has been perfect since

an oil filter is about £5 - £7, the oil i used was motul 5100 10w/40, bout £7 per litre...i bought 3 litres..u need 2.4L when doing a filter change at the same time.

i had no special tools....just a spanner to undo the oil drain plug...thats it....was very quick and easy

@Ceri J

Lol. Yeah you're right, it's not as if I'm doing a full strip down. Although I do know a guy who took off half his finger while lubing the chain with the rear wheel running once... Never underestimate human stupidity or the law of sod!

Only joking, I'm plunging head first into a bucket of tea then I'm out to the garage to do a list of maintenance tasks on the SV. If there's letters missing in my next post, you'll know that I too have succumbed to the finger-thief!

Cheers once again for all the replies.

Feldspar,

If you have tried all the previous posts (as I did and more on my 99 bike, new clutch cable, worm screw, cleaning, oil change etc) and still found it would not go into neutral I found it was the clutch plates! Or one of em.

During an oil change I thought I'd check the clutch springs were within tollerance, they were but only just (once the new ones were on it makes the lever harder to pull again) so not them, onto the plates, reasonably good for age and not warped so not them either!

Which left the wearing plates, on the last one there are green rubber bands that go around every other cog (on the outside of the plates) to keep the first plate away from the clutch housing, one of these had snapped so was dragging against the housing making it difficult to fully release the load to find neutral. New plate (Suzuki dont sell the bands, Grrrr) fixed it for me.

Good hunting, Stu.

[admin]

As already mentioned, look at the clutch cable. Too much slack and the clutch doesn't fully disengage.

[Bluepete]

It's vey simple to strip out the clutch cable to lube it up properly. I had the same problem, but changed the cable 'cos I couldn;t get it to run smoothly. Only £15 or so. Stops worries about recurring problems over winter!

I had aproblem with my SV and it was none of the previous.Where the adjustable connecting rod is on the gear shift I had caught it with my big feet and slightly bent the rod. Takes 2secs to have a look and if it is bent stick it in a vice and straighten.

Sometimes we miss the obvious

[NAPA121]

This is a problem with my sv650 K4 so will try the above....

Quality website this...was gonna post a question as been having trouble with the gear selector but a quick search and viola....common problem by the looks of it and with plenty of suggestions on things to try on how to fix it...

sv650.org rocks

For a temporary work around I found that just turning the engine off, either with the key or the kill switch, and then turning the ingition on without restarting the bike allowed me to find netural with no problems.

The long term fix was to adjust the clutch cable.

I now have exactly the same problem with my K12. The turn it off and on thing still works but I have not yet found a long term fix.

[NAPA121]

Yeah....deliberate stalling at the lights enables you to select neutral but makes you look like a plank as other bikers are looking at you and thinking 'there's a numpty with no clutch control'

Won't get a chance to try to fix until the weekend but it needs sorting asap.

On my ride into Baker street this morning, I accelerated at pace in first gear a couple of times and it would not let me slot into 2 gear....lucky I was not accelerating out of a situation but need to fix it before I am in the situation where I need to gear up fast and can't......Might get me into some trouble commuting in London like that.

Gonna try adjusting the Chain first and then move on to the clutch.

Neil

chain lubrication is very important and really helps with gear selection

dont forget your worm drives people., as this is what actualy determines the overal operation of the clutch; the cable adjustment really only sorts out the free play.