1 Stuck in 4th gear Mon Mar 19, 2018 10:40 pm
Tom Witt
active member
I was riding home from putting fuel in it and pushing pretty hard (for me) when my 1985 K100 RS suddenly downshifted to 4th HARD and stayed there. Hard defined as the rear wheel locked up momentarily until the engine speed caught up. I limped home a few miles away. I was able to downshift to first one time at a stop sign. Running back up the gears seemed normal, but it wouldn't engage 5th and then was stuck in 4th until I got home. today is the first day I've had a chance to look at it. Clutch is working normally, it will disengage the engine from the transmission every time. Checked the trans oil level and it was low, but still above the minimum mark on the shock adjuster tool and looked relatively normal for gear oil. When I drained the oil, however, I discovered the following:
The oil looks like it has finely divided metal dust suspended in it to my eye, but I've no experience with trans oil-other than checking the level-on any vehicle I've owned. I can't feel any shavings or granularity when I rub a sample between my fingers. Definitely metal shavings on the drain plug though. No chunks of metal came out with the oil. There's also a lot of accumulated oil under the engine oil pan-also new since December-that I am assuming was where the missing trans oil went since the oil was at the full mark at the same December check. The bike has 53,000 miles on it and I've put the last 7,000 miles on it. No major issues until now, but my commute went from 16 miles round trip, to 140 round trip at the beginning of the year, so I've put a lot of miles on it in the last three months. Am I looking at a rebuild/find a used one, or is this something a little less drastic?
The oil looks like it has finely divided metal dust suspended in it to my eye, but I've no experience with trans oil-other than checking the level-on any vehicle I've owned. I can't feel any shavings or granularity when I rub a sample between my fingers. Definitely metal shavings on the drain plug though. No chunks of metal came out with the oil. There's also a lot of accumulated oil under the engine oil pan-also new since December-that I am assuming was where the missing trans oil went since the oil was at the full mark at the same December check. The bike has 53,000 miles on it and I've put the last 7,000 miles on it. No major issues until now, but my commute went from 16 miles round trip, to 140 round trip at the beginning of the year, so I've put a lot of miles on it in the last three months. Am I looking at a rebuild/find a used one, or is this something a little less drastic?