Home from trip with no OVERDRIVE

[vegastruckee]

OK so some of you might remember my DAD rapid rod starting a post about me loosing 5th gear 5 miles into my trip. I planned this trip for over a year and there was no way I was cancelling. What really took me by suprise is that I ride my bike at least 6 days a weeks. We got on the road leaving Las Vegas and I felt the tranny slip for a fraction of a second as I was passing a car in overdrive. After this tiny slip the bike kept driving fine but my gut told me something was going wrong. We continued to Sacramento CA about 500 miles away and as we entered town I felt the exact same slip but it was about a quarter second longer than the first slip I felt. The feeling in my stomach got worse. We went to dinner and I mentioned the slip to the guys and everyone kinda wrote it off as nerves, but like I said I ride the bike everywhere so I am pretty in tune with it at all times. I didnt get much sleep that night because this was bothering me so much. The next morning as we got on the freeway and I shifted into 5th....NADA. Was like I shifted into neutral. I thought the trip was over. Contacted my dad and he started doing research and said that as long as I stayed under 75 the bike would be fine until I got home.

 

Well we rode 3,560 miles into Canada VIA the pacific coast. Rode the border and dropped into Glacier national park. Made it home with absolutely no problems. My bike had been averaging 32 mpg but on this trip I actually averaged 39mpg with a high of 44mpg????curious.

 

now the task of finding out what went wrong. I am going to start ripping the bike apart and any advice would greatly be appreciated.

 

The bike is a 2003 venture with 61000 miles on it and I ride it like a grandpa LOL very rarely do I push it hard so the tranny issue is puzzling.

Thanks everyone.

[Herb In Texas]

Have you considered the clutch is slipping in 5th gear. The higher the gear ratio the heavier the load on the clutch. I would think that if you did in fact shell out 5th gear there would be more noise than a sack o fightin cats.

[Michael_Bishop]

It will be interesting to hear what you find out what caused the problem.

[Trader]

I can see the gas milage being better as everyone says you have to ride thesebikes all the time at 3500 rpm or more.

 

"riding like a grandpaw" probably means you putt along at 2800-3200 rpm...which actually does cost gas milage!

 

Don't ask me why...I have no idea! But that seems to be the rule of thumb!

 

Hope the 5th gear issues turns out to be minor

[phertwo]

Did you change your oil before your trip? Did you switch to a synthetic oil? As soon as I switched from Yamalube to Royal Purple full synthetic my clutch started to slip when I would rev up in 4th and 5th. Since its a wet clutch the synthetic oils seem to cause this slipping problem. Its no wonder so many of us upgrade our clutches to pcw or barnett springs. Food for thought anyway..

 

This is a very easy fix though. Just call up PCW or buy a Barnett and you will be on your way with a 1~2 hour job.

[Mike G in SC]

Hope a lot of people read this especially those who go to 5th around 55-60.

This is what the RSV and RSTD do best.

 

Great to see it didn't ruin your ride.

 

Mike G

[BuddyRich]

Actually you can run the bike over a 100 in 4th just fine. It loves the higher rpms. I suspect your having a clutch spring problem. Install the PCW upgrade and that will probably fix it.

[Carbon_One]

I agree with some of the other guys here. Check the clutch 1st. You'll have to drop the oil to do that and at that point can readyly tell if you've got metal from the trans in the bottom of the pan or not.

At 61k it'll be at that point in time the discs are starting to get worn a bit thus the slippage. Most clutches I've seen didn't need the metal discs replaced nor the friction ones. You'll need to measure them with a micrometer to be sure if they're within specs or not before ordering them, then get a PCW kit or the upgrade kit Sky_Doc 17 sells here on the site.

Betting my you'll find the trans A-OK and the clutch to be the problem.

Larry

[Trader]

If it was the clutch would it only show the affect when it is in 5th?

Wouldn't it exhibit signs of slipping in other gears?

 

He said "Was like I shifted into neutral"....that doesn't sound like SLIPPING....it sounds like there is NOTHING there.....thats why I'm thinking linkages or gears or something other than clutch.

 

I just can't believe a clutch would cause a total failure in 5th but have absolutely no problems in any other gear

[Flyinfool]

......

The next morning as we got on the freeway and I shifted into 5th....NADA. Was like I shifted into neutral. I thought the trip was over. Contacted my dad and he started doing research and said that as long as I stayed under 75 the bike would be fine until I got home.

........

 

When you say it felt like neutral, did you let off the gas and the engine when to idle while you were still rolling at 55+?

 

Other than this one part of your story, I agree with the others that you have the famous slipping clutch.

 

It is possible that since you knew you were having issues you did baby it a lot more than normal which would help to account for the improved gas mileage and no slipping in 4th. When the clutch spring gets weak it is normal to have slipping in both 4th and 5th.

 

It is also very important to use only oil made for use with a wet clutch or you will also get slipping. It will say on the bottle if it is.

 

Putting in the heavy spring is a simple job.

 

The first trip I took pulling a fully loaded trailer I never got above 4th and got better mileage than I normally do without the trailer. There is something to be said for letting an engine run where it is happy.

[Flyinfool]

If it was the clutch would it only show the affect when it is in 5th?

Wouldn't it exhibit signs of slipping in other gears?

 

He said "Was like I shifted into neutral"....that doesn't sound like SLIPPING....it sounds like there is NOTHING there.....thats why I'm thinking linkages or gears or something other than clutch.

 

I just can't believe a clutch would cause a total failure in 5th but have absolutely no problems in any other gear

 

I agree except that it slipped and came back twice. A broken gear does not come back.

 

The slipping is not very noticeable in 1st thru 3rd because the higher gear ratio lets the bike accelerate easier so the slip is not felt. It is still there, you just can not feel it.

[vegastruckee]

Thanks for all the thoughts. Im open for all of it. So after the bike would no longer accelerate in OD we stopped at a gas station to pick up the rest of our group. The bike was off and I shifted it into overdrive and while sitting on the bike I rolled it forward about 20 feet with absolutely no resistance. I started the bike and heard the gears clicking but not moving forward at all. I pushed pretty hard in 4th quite a few times to get in front of some crazy cagers. My max speed for the trip in 4th was 99.7mph according to my gps. I did notice on a couple occasions that when I accelerated to get into passing lane I felt some clutch slippage. I would back off the throttle and away she would go accelerating perfectly. The bike was oiled with AMSOL oil put in at Christmas time. After 5th went out I took it to a shop and had oil drained to check for any signs of metal (which would have ended the trip). The mechanics is Eureka CA were amazing they let me stand next to bike the entire time. As they drained oil they let it run over a magnet, after fully drained we checked the magnet and not a single metal shaving. Then he took a extendable magnet and ran it around inside the pan. NO METAL again. We filled the oil and off I went.

 

My question is....

Would the clutch let the bike roll in OD.

Would the oil cause slippage even though its 6 months old with no prior evidence of slippage.

 

I got some bad fuel about 2 weeks ago so I drained the tank, cleaned the carbs and went out and rode the bike like I stole it....with no slippage.

 

Thanks everyone.

[phertwo]

My slippage was more gradual. The more I pushed it, the more it slipped. But to lose 5th completely . I'd wait for V7Goose to jump all over this with his wisdom.

 

Slippage in 4th as well at least hints that your clutch spring, discs and plates are suspect. I'd think that you'd be replacing those at least.

[MidnightSpook]

I'd wait for V7Goose to jump all over this with his wisdom.

 

This is just too funny. I always find myself streaming down the list of responders looking for V7Goose. He seems to alway make sense out of a problem...at least for me.

[Guest Slab_Ryder]

Friction Plates

[Carbon_One]

Yep gotta agree with Phertwo. Slippage in 4th under acceleration show that your clutch spring, discs and plates are suspect.

And with no metals being picked up with the magnet shows that the trans is good IMO.

Get ready to do a clutch job. It's not hard to do ( there's a tech post here on how to do it).

Larry

[vegastruckee]

OK now for the good stuff.

I pulled the clutch and basket etc. When everything is pulled there is a hole you can look through and see the gears. Its supposed to be there so dont worry there....

 

Ok so I looked in the hole and could see most of the gears, everything looks perfect. The case looks perfect with no sign of metal flying around. I put the bike into neutral and spun the shaft. It spins perfectly smooth.

 

Next I put the bike into other gears and shaft would not spin, which I think is correct.

 

I then shifted into 5th, the shaft would freely spin but would clunk quite a bit. You could see a gear in the back of the tranny that appeared to be loose. I took video and am attempting to upload to Youtube right now. Hopefully this video will help the cause.

 

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnYI84DNYaQ]‪Yamaha venture transmission trouble‬‏ - YouTube[/ame]

[Flyinfool]

If you can push the bike in 5th with the clutch engaged then it NOT a clutch problem.

The slippage that you have in 4th says that is a clutch problem.

 

You have two separate issues going on at the same time, very likely unrelated.

 

One is the clutch, a minor issue.

 

The other is 5th, You have a mechanical problem in there some where. I am not well enough versed on the workings of the trany to guess exactly what it might be.

[Gearhead]

My bike had been averaging 32 mpg but on this trip I actually averaged 39mpg with a high of 44mpg????curious.

Well then, who needs fifth??

 

Not your clutch, no way that is causing the 5th gear problem.

 

Could be a bent shift fork, which are the arms that move the gearsets back and forth along the shaft. When you shift a tranny, you don't actually change gears that are engaged per se. All the gears are always engaged (in terms of the gear teeth turning another gear), but only one set is locked to the shaft at a time while the rest are spinning freely on bushings. There are 3 or four "dogs" or protrusions off the face of some of the gears which engage with a set of corresponding slots in an adjacent gear. This happens when the gears are slid along the shaft to be right next to each other. They are disengaged when they are slid apart. The shift fork is the piece that does the sliding, which is controlled by the shift drum which is rotated as you shift through the gears. When a shift fork is bent it may not move the gears close enough for the dogs to engage; they may clink against each other like yours are and not produce much in the way of metal shavings.

 

One other thing that is curious is that the back-most gear in your video does appear to wobble around, as you mentioned. It should not do that, whether or not the dogs are engaging.

 

You are in for splitting the cases, methinks. Sorry to bear bad news

 

Jeremy

[Carbon_One]

Looking at the video now tells us that you do indeed have 2 problems going on here as Flying Fool & Gearhead state. The way the gear appears to be bumping back & forth looks like it's either not engaging the "gear dogs" or the shifting drum has a problem. In any case you'll be tearing down the trans and splitting the cases to fix it. Not sure without looking if the shift drum can be accessed without splitting the cases but someone else here should know that for ya. If it can be checked prior to splitting then that's good and may well save the day. If not it'll be rebuild time.

Larry

[vegastruckee]

thanks for the advice guys I appreciate it. Im looking into a partial block/tranny from ebay now. Splitting the case looks like a ton of work.

[Rick Haywood]

Hope a lot of people read this especially those who go to 5th around 55-60.

This is what the RSV and RSTD do best.

 

Great to see it didn't ruin your ride.

 

Mike G

 

Well I get crap for fuel mileage when I run higher rpm's If I run 58-64 mph I get about 39-42mpg if I run 75-80 i get 31-34 mpg so the added wind and added rpm's kill mine

[Carbon_One]

Well I get crap for fuel mileage when I run higher rpm's If I run 58-64 mph I get about 39-42mpg if I run 75-80 i get 31-34 mpg so the added wind and added rpm's kill mine

 

Ya think that's bad try a trike with an extra 4-500 lbs added on and then the bigger body catching all that wind. LOL

Larry

[eagleeye]

I've been following this and from what you have said, it didn't slip in 4th, and in fact put thousands of miles on it IN 4th, it did sound like a transmission issue.

BUT--That was an awesome video that you took.

Best of luck to you in whichever route you take to make it work again.

 

But a kudos to you for making the trip.

 

THAT'S an adventure!!

Steve

[Grisolm1]

I

thanks for the advice guys I appreciate it. Im looking into a partial block/tranny from ebay now. Splitting the case looks like a ton of work.

 

That would be my approach if cases need to come apart. For $1200 you could have a good replacement motor at your door and sell your old one for a few hundred. Best thing would be you could still ride it till you had everything ready to swap.