| Author | Message | ||
     Pcmodeler |
Had taken off from an intersection near my house and my takeoff was pretty bad. Thought it was just that the engine wasn't fully warmed up and that I just didn't take of as smoothly as I should have. So, I get several miles from home and get ready to pull into a gas station. Go to shift and my foot is hitting air. Look down and there's the shift lever swinging and totally separated from the linkage. The dang screw that holds the linkage to the shift lever had fallen out. I ended up having to ride all the way back in third gear. Man, it sure is tough to take off from a light in third. I ended up replacing both bolts on the linkage (just to make sure). The other had thread lock on it, so I can't imagine that the one that fell out didn't. Just glad I was reasonably close to home. | ||
| Pwnzor |
Same thing happened to me except I got stuck in 5th gear. Went to get off the freeway and tried to downshift by waving my foot through the air where the lever should be. SO, I pulled over, found the linkage hanging there, yanked it down to 3rd gear by hand and used a zip tie to secure it so it wouldn't fly off. Stopped in at Ace Hardware (Ace really IS the place) and got several extra bolts and a tube of loc-tite. Fixed it on the spot, hasn't failed again. Still carry extra bolts with me. Here's a tip, carry an extra kickstand pivot bolt as well. That one sheared off while warming up the bike one day, very close call. | ||
| Pcmodeler |
All praise ACE Hardware. That's where I got mine as well. Thanks god there are still a hand full of actual Hardware stores left. | ||
| Rsh |
How funny, the same thing happened to me when I was up in the canyons (Angeles Crest) coming up to a stop sign I went to down shift, the shift linkage was just dangling. Luckily it was all pretty much down hill and I rode over to Glendale HD Buell, got a couple of replacement screws installed one of them and kept the spare in my tool kit. | ||
| Kccyclone |
Same thing happened to me, but I was in the middle of nowhere...so I used the ring off my key chain to couple everything back together...it was loose and sloppy as could be, but it got me home...... | ||
| Swordsman |
Yikes! Maybe I should look into some of these spare bolts?!?! ~SM | ||
| Lonexb |
+1 on the key chain | ||
| Pwnzor |
Ace hardware is the best by far. Even going corporate, they have kept to their roots by actually having the items you need 99% of the time. Everything you need for a beer bong, all on the same aisle endcap. What more can you ask for? | ||
| Ulendo |
+1 for the broken bolts - but my incident was a bit more exciting. had an old fart suddenly swerve in front of me, slammed it down a gear to get around him, only to have the front end leave the ground ( I think it took 2 gears down as the linkage let go, or some darn thing) scared me, him, and the driver behind me all in one shot!! as already commented, I now carry spare bolts, and loctite in my roadside kit. | ||
| Ptown |
I know this is not really the issue and my bike is the X1, but in the 5 years that I have it I never had to tighten any bolts what so ever, on the exhaust manifolds , discs or anywhere due to rattles or shaking the bike has. I also never had to top up engine oil between services, Am I lucky, or should I expect a Shock one day with the whole bike starting dismantling on its own. Ride safe | ||
| Altima02 |
on a recent trip to the dragon, and little oopsie left me without a shifter. My dad had a leatherman pocket tool that had a locking pliers on it. We clamped it down on the shifter and I used it to get to a lowes, where I substituted a turnbuckle for the shifter shaft. I now have a vice-grip leatherman in my tool kit  | ||
| Rum_runner |
i got stuck in 4th. used my pocket knife to take bolt out of mirror on right side handle bar end. bolt was 3 inches to long ended up cutting boot lace and wrapping around bolt so linkage would not slide up & down bolt. | ||
| Diablobrian |
If you're going to be stuck in a gear, 3rd is not a bad one to be stuck in. I had an electrical issue at homecoming and got stuck in third. The torque these bikes put down makes it less of an issue, with a little bit of creative clutch work, than on almost any IL4. Needing a power shifter makes even a small electrical glitch a very bad thing. Fortunately, the system I have is usually very reliable. (knock on wood!) | ||
| Jkhawaii |
put red lock tight on my linkage bolts haven't come loose yet (actually I think it was the blue that I used) |
