Finding Neutral After Kickstart Outer Cover Removal

Triumph Motorcycle Forum - TriumphTalk

Help Support Triumph Motorcycle Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

MikeC

Member
Hi,
Shifting gears was really hard. I had to depress the pedal after shifting each gear on this '79 T140e. Proceeded to removed the kickstart outer cover to see if things would loosen up but they didn't. I removed also the plunger. Then removed the primary chain cover and found that the selecter shaft was sticking somehow to the cover (will need to investigate that further) but my current problem is after putting the plunger and kickstart cover back, I can no longer find neutral. The primary chain cover is still off and the gears seem to be shifting nicely.
Any idea what could have happened? I was able to find neutral before taking this apart. Is there a special step to take before putting the plunger back in?
Thanks,
Michael
 
I took off the outer kickstart cover once more, realizing I didn't align the camplate on the second groove as shown in this diagram. My camplate is stuck in place, how do it get it to move?
 

Attachments

  • Gears_indexed.jpg
    Gears_indexed.jpg
    60.9 KB · Views: 20
Before removing the outer cover, I had set it on 5th gear but then changed them with the cover off. How do I straighten this?
Thanks,
Michael
 
I will be watching this for the answer since I haven't got a clue how to help you. Hopefully someone with the knowledge will be along shortly and can give you the answer or point you in the right direction.
 
Remove the outer cover, then loosen the inner cover and re-install it MAKING SURE IT IS PROPERLY INDEXED.

Then, MAKE SURE THE SLOTTED END OF THE SHAFT MESHES PROPERLY WITH THE INTERNAL SHIFTER MECHANISM IN THE OUTER COVER.
 
SHOULD be. But was it indeed indexed before?

The jamming / non-shifting was probably due to not aligning the shaft spline on the shifter lump in the outer cover. If that shaft "U" that wraps around the clutch basket gets bent, it is mighty hard to get it straightened accurately without binding/sticking, however slight. It makes shifting a chore instead of snick-snick...
 
yes, it was shifting before I removed the outer cover.
When you say "the shaft spline" do you mean the gearchange quadrant assembly?
 
The shaft that passes through the engine from the shifter has a single spline on the other end (like a big fat "plain" screwdriver), where it meshes with a slot in the shifter quadrant that is located in the transmission outer cover.

If it is binding when you try to shift with the primary cover in place, the shaft may have gotten bent if the tranny cover was forced on without aligning the slot and spline. Once that shaft is bent (as I mentioned previously) it needs to be VERY carefully straightened or you will have transmission issues of every sort.
 
I believe all that's needed at this point is for me to be able to move the camplate up to line up on the red horizontal line shown in the picture above but how can that be done with the inner cover on?
 
That's not it at all.

The red reference line is to indicate proper meshing of the internal gears when you install the INNER cover.

The shifter quadrant in the outer cover ALWAYS returns to the centered position with the internal springs.

Simply line up the shaft blade by lifting the shifter from one side of the bike, while inserting the outer cover from the opposite side.
 
The spindle is lining up with the quadrant(you can't put the outer cover on without them matching up, not all the way at least). But once the cover is one, gears don't seem to be shifting. I get a clicking sound pressing the foot changer down but nothing happening on upward gears. This is bizarre.
 
If the INNER cover was never removed, and it was shifting properly before, the answer MUST lie in what happened when the OUTER cover was off. DO NOT remove the inner cover!

You probably lost one of the two plunger teeth that engage the butterfly gear. They are spring loaded and can pop right out if you fiddle with the shifter mechanism housed in the outer cover.

THAT would certainly explain it. Also, the two plunger teeth need to be properly oriented.
 
sorry for the late response. Turning the back wheel a bit helped getting gears moving, so that piece is good now. I should have thought about it sooner.
Now, I'm back dealing with my main problem. The foot lever is really hard to operate. It sprung back in position with the outer cover off (also with the cover on with a couple of screws attached). But with the whole cover screwed on, it doesn't spring back. You may be right grandpaul, the spindle could be bent slightly. But what's the trick to get it back straight not knowing which way it's off? When I first put the cover, all the wholes for the screws seem to line up nicely which led me to believe it wasn't bent. I also loosened a bit all the screws around the cover to see if it would free it up.
 
I'm ordering an extra thick paper gasket for the primary chain cover to see if a bit of extra space frees up the spindle. I had switched to a joint compound and it maybe be bringing the spindle too close to the cover.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top