So does doing clutchless changes muck up your box?

Originally Posted by svJvJ

I thought there migh be something wrong......

My mate said it might be the position of my levers and the way i'm shifting.........suggested to forget about the clutch while ****fing up.

I had similar, but opposite.

When I first got the SV, I found that when changing down, it'd only go down one gear. I was trying to "box shift" down two gears, then let the clutch out (if you get what I mean).

Move the gear lever down a little, problem solved. Turns out, I was leaving my foot slightly on the lever, meaning I hadn't completed the change.

Needless to say, now that I've moved the gear lever, I don't try to go down 2 gears at a time...

Sadly there have not been enough of the high mileage bike owners to make any conclusion. Of course the owners would have had to have owned their bikes from new or nearly new to vouch for the type of change used, so I guess that narrows it down even more. My previous Sv had done 50,000. 45,000 miles of that 2 up, so I'd have changed gears even more frequently. The box was fine and it was still on it's original clutch, and I drive fairly briskly. I agree with Rictus, I'd much rather change a clutch than start delving into the gearbox internals.

Reading comments here and on another thread I think that if gears are being missed it's either operator error, clutch or linkage adjustment, or a maintenance issue ( old oil or chain tightness) as Suzuki boxes are generally fine.

Thank you for all your input.

Originally Posted by petevtwin650

Sadly there have not been enough of the high mileage bike owners to make any conclusion. Of course the owners would have had to have owned their bikes from new or nearly new to vouch for the type of change used, so I guess that narrows it down even more.

I got my K6 with 4miles on the clock. I'm currently at almost 16k. I expect that when the SV goes, she'll be the wrong side of 150k! That is, unless my itchy finger gets the better of me, and I decide I can afford insurance on something beefier. The next will almost definately be second hand though.

I know you can't reliably build a statistic over one bike, but I'll keep everyone posted

if you want to clutch less shift why not get a power comander and a quick shift kit so it interupts the spark during clutch less shifts making it smooth and not hard on your transmission but as a whole use the clutch. clutch plates for my bike were $108 with gasket. cheaper than a transmission

I tend to use clutchless upshifts too in the higher gears, but not all the time, depending on whether I thin it's going to go in smoothly or not.

Have never seen the point of clutchless downshifts - if it's quicker or smoother or better in any way, why don't motogp or wsb riders do it? All the onboard shots show them using the clutch on downchanges.

Originally Posted by Baph

I had similar, but opposite.

When I first got the SV, I found that when changing down, it'd only go down one gear. I was trying to "box shift" down two gears, then let the clutch out (if you get what I mean).

Move the gear lever down a little, problem solved. Turns out, I was leaving my foot slightly on the lever, meaning I hadn't completed the change.

Needless to say, now that I've moved the gear lever, I don't try to go down 2 gears at a time...

I always find blipping the throttle between each gear shift when going down more than 1 gear with clutch in helps a LOT, its solved the problem of the box not liking it... dont ask me why it works, just does.

As for clutchless changes NEVER down, makes the bike all uncomfortable and hardly saves time so i cant see the point... even WSB/MotoGP clutch it down .

I do when ragging it do clutchless changes up but ONLY at 7000 revs + and 2nd gear up, too rough at any lower revs or from 1st gear in my experience. (can be done at lower revs and from 1st gear its just rare itll not feel like the gear jumped in and jerk you).

Ive only ever once found a false neutral and that was from 1st to 2nd (wasnt just neutral) it slipped out of 2nd, but i know i didnt do a full click with the shifter (new boots ) wouldnt go down into first at all just grinded... oops, so i had to take it back to 2nd and then it change down to 1st from there. That was using the clutch...

My bike has dont about 16500miles and feels as good as ever! K5 bike so its new still

I've done slightly more miles on a newer bike

Clutchless downshifting just feels nicer to me when I'm pushing the bike hard. Some folks don't like it, others haven't tried it for various reasons. Horses for courses.

You can smoothly change up from around 4k RPM, or rather, I can, on my bike. Usually only 2nd gear & above, but now & again 1st-2nd.

Originally Posted by Sevorg

Agreed-if you want to play with clutchless changes buy a C90. That said I do them infrequently, can't explain when, just when it feels right.
Vague I know...

just to put things right the c90/70 and 50 all have "automatic" clutches. What takes place is that when you select a gear by operating the gear lever a cam is operated disengaging the clutch. trust me i know. atb paul P.S. I dont condone clutchless changes.

Originally Posted by petevtwin650

Sadly there have not been enough of the high mileage bike owners to make any conclusion.

I took two of my ZZR1100s over 100,000 miles (both did well over 60,000 each in my ownership) and the gearchanges on them were as sweet as the day they rolled off the factory line. I'd done clutchless upchanges almost every time from 2nd gear upwards, but wouldn't consider doing a downchange without the clutch due to the near impossibility of matching revs to roadspeed and not losing all momentum while doing so. Also, changing down without tends to wear the backs of the gear dogs (better known as rounding off) which can cause the bike to jump out of gear.

My Honda CB250RS was hammered almost to death and abused horribly in the 60,000 miles I commuted on it, but despite the many thousands of clutchless gearchanges I subjected it to in 4 years, the gearbox was about the only thing that didn't break on it in the 192,000 miles it had definitely done.

All the better race bikes I know of have quickshifters to go up the box, none of them will use the shifter to come down it... and blown gearboxes on Japanese built racebikes are almost unheard of.

Someone once told me that the Ducati dry clutched bikes have a sweeter gearchange if the clutch isn't used going up the box - that's certainly been my experience every time I've ridden a 996 or 749..

In summary, Over the past 32 years of riding high mileages per annum I've discovered it's absolutely fine to clutchless shift up the box, but would never consider going down the box the same way

[G]

I clutchless upshift 85 - 90% of the time. Not exactly high mileage though I guess, all 9k have been fairly hard though :s

I never cluthless downshift... On my own bike anyway.

Edit:holy grave digging batman... Just noticed when this topic was started.