How do I know if the pawl spring is broken?

[Frenchie]

Driving home on my Nero Corsa V11 (2005) Le Mans, I downshifted into 4th and then couldn't down shift or change gear.  However the gear shifter remained "sprung" - and I found (as I was 3 hours ride from home) with some experimentation that I could change gear if I accelerated hard then quickly decelerated, and at the critical moment, I could upshift. Not exactly an easy process, but it got me home.  So my question: is this a symptom of broken pawl spring or are there different gremlins at work?

[Cabernet]

Driving home on my Nero Corsa V11 (2005) Le Mans, I downshifted into 4th and then couldn't down shift or change gear. However the gear shifter remained "sprung" - and I found (as I was 3 hours ride from home) with some experimentation that I could change gear if I accelerated hard then quickly decelerated, and at the critical moment, I could upshift. Not exactly an easy process, but it got me home. So my question: is this a symptom of broken pawl spring or are there different gremlins at work?

Yep, that's how you know.

 

Sent from my D5803 using Tapatalk

[coreytrevor]

Because under hard braking, the shift arm will swing forward so it can engage the selector wheel, and you can shift! You don't need acceleration, just braking or maybe a really steep downhill.

[Frenchie]

Ok - thanks guys - I was confused because the gear shifter was still positively sprung, so I thought that there may have been a different issue.  I'll have a go at replacing it - I have a spare one bought.  Thanks again!

[coreytrevor]

Yes, it's a different spring that makes the shifter return to center. You'll see how it works soon.

[coreytrevor]

Also, while you're in there, if you blueprint the shift mechanism like in Lucky Phil's thread, you won't believe the difference in shifting.

 

http://www.v11lemans.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=19547

 

The photos would be a help, maybe LP can provide them?

[Frenchie]

Thanks again!  If anyone can figure out where to find the original photos, that would be very helpful.  

[coreytrevor]

I found a few of the photos on Google images by googling V11 shift improvement. They are from the Wildguzzi site but they aren't in the thread there anymore. I tried to post them here but...

 

You are not allowed to use that image extension on this community

 

I never noticed you could find missing photos like that before.

[docc]

They will have to be rehosted to post.

Send me a link and I'll try to restore them.

[coreytrevor]

I'm not sure what you want. I can see the photos in Google images but if I open the page the photos are gone. How do I link to that?

 

These are the pages the photos were on.

 

http://www.v11lemans.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=19547

 

http://wildguzzi.com/forum/index.php?topic=80481.0

[docc]

Yeah, that's not PhotoBlockit. Not sure what hosting site that [was].

 

The original poster (LuckyPhil) will have to restore those ten images.

 

The remainder of the thread has several images posted by Scud, Chuck, and czakky which may be helpful, but no substitute for LuckPhil's superb tutorial.

 

Help us [LuckyPhil}, you're our only hope!

[Frenchie]

Well I finally got around to replacing the pawl spring and retrieved the broken part.  However, when I rode the bike home, I think I had finished up in 3rd gear. I have the gear selector cover off the bike, but can't figure out how to get NEUTRAL !  Can anyone explain to me what and how to do this?  I presume I also need to align the two geared selector wheels situated in the cover. Thanks!

[Chuck]

Ug. I looked through my pictures, but don't have one of the pre selector in neutral. At any rate.. you are going to want to run through the gears on the pre selector before installing it. You'll figure that out.

On the transmission, from memory, the two pins are an equal distance from each end, but don't count on my memory. At any rate, they'll have to line up with the slots in the pre selector when it is in neutral. 

Clear as mud? 

[coreytrevor]

If you rotate the selector wheels through all the detent positions, there will be seven detents. Neutral is a half step between first and second, so if you pay attention to how far the rotation is between detents, at one end of the rotation you will have first, then half step to neutral, then half step to second. Then the rest are full steps to 6th.

 

Edit: I can't remember if neutral is where the dots line up. It's been too long and the manual is no help.

 

Then you need to slide the 4 shift forks so their pins will drop into the slots on the wheels.

 

Did that make much sense?

[Scud]

You need to match up Neutral on the cover and the gearbox.

 

Cover:  Cory and Chuck have described the cover well. Just make sure the two dots line up at some point, which might be neutral... but like they said, you will find it as a half-step between first and second.

 

Gearbox:  Get the rear wheel off the ground. Slide the selector arms back and forth on the rods and notice how the cogs engage and disengage the drive gears. You need to adjust the arms until you can turn the rear wheel freely. 

 

After both of those are set, I suggest dry-mounting the cover and running through the gears with the rear wheel still up. Then put it in neutral, remove cover, apply sealant and do your final install.