Hello,all.  Following up on my new member post from a few days ago.  Thanks for the welKome.

A couple weeks ago I bought a 1985 K100RT in disrepair and not running.  The bike had been ridden just over 100K miles (I would guess well cared for) and then gifted about two years ago to a guy who did not take care of it.  He quickly wrecked it with his buddy on the pillion, damaging the fairings and mirrors, and busting the rear brake master cylinder.  He let it sit for a long while on a gravel driveway, where it was knocked over and broke the shifter lever at the neck next to the foot shaft.  As you can imagine, there are a few things (fuel pump, filter, etc.) that need replaced.

I have disassembled the bike so I can get the frame powder coated and do all necessary clean up.  I've also removed the final drive, swing arm, and transmission to do spline lubes.  Happily, all of the splines look to be in very good condition.

Here's the question:  Before disassembly, as now with the transmission on the workbench, I am not able to run through the gears.  From what I assume to be neutral, I can shift down and hear an audible click I assume to be first gear.  I can shift up (again into neutral) with an audible click.  However, I'm not able to shift into second or further up.  No audible click, can't feel any engagement.  The shifter level will raise and go so far, but nothing by way of indication that it has shifted.

I'm reasonably mechanically inclined and I have no trepidation about braking into the transmission, although I have never messed around with one before.  Anything you'd be on the lookout for with the symptoms I've described?

Many thanks!

Frey

I did give the transmission a bit of a shake -- didn't hear anything rattling around in there.  Frey

Turn the output shaft a few degrees while shifting.
(You also must do this when the bike is at standstill...i.e. not moving)

What Inge says. Plus, if you do have to go into the transmission then get a workshop manual (Clymer will do), not because it's difficult but because replacing the end cover requires pre-setting the shift-lever centreing spring. It's just a bit awkward.

Indeed, transmission shifts through gears while turning the output shaft.  I was inspired to YouTube transmissions and see inside one.  Genius, whoever came up with that engaging gear design.  In retrospect, it's quite obvious why you can't shift through all the gears when they aren't spinning.  So, hopefully that was my "duh" post for the year.  Fortunately, 2016 is nearly over. 

I did drain the transmission oil, as I'll replace all fluids.  The oil looked fine, no fragments.  The magnetic oil plug did have what I take to be a normal amount of very fine metal debris.

Dai, I see you've got a couple Guzzis, so I may try to pick your brain in the spring to get the '79 G5 running (it's all back together, just sorting electrical issues -- and keeping fingers crossed).

Thanks for the help!

Frey

FreyZI wrote:Dai, I see you've got a couple Guzzis, so I may try to pick your brain in the spring to get the '79 G5 running (it's all back together, just sorting electrical issues -- and keeping fingers crossed).

Electrical problems? Easy-peasy. I had a '79 G5; owned it for 25 years and covered 205,000 miles on it. Then some turd in Belfast decided he needed it more than I did, crashed it and torched it. I'm still bitter about that because I had serious visions of cracking 500,000 miles on it. Still, it's surprising how much you can rescue from a burnt-out rusty wreck and re-use to restore an 850-T3 Cali.