You know, I like it when things slowly deteriorate, because they suddenly are so much better when you fix them!
For a little while I had problems shifting; when I tried to downshift a few gears at once, I couldn't, because the lever would not come back up in the middle position.
At first I thought it was the linkage, so I lubed the ball-and-socket joints of the linkage and made sure that those were not binding. But that wasn't it, the problem turned out to be the actual pivot point of the shift lever, it had gotten really dirty and not lubed at all.
I removed the foot peg and then the foot peg bracket, which is the shaft part of the pivot of the shift lever. There is a groove in that shaft, probably to hold grease and keep that pivot lubricated.
In my case there was only stiff black gunk and some pitting on those pivot surfaces, nothing that resembled any lubrication.
After cleaning the pivot surfaces[edit], lubing the surfaces[/edit] and reassembling everything, I was happy that the downshifting problem was resolved, but also that shifting was now much slicker and smoother.
I had not noticed that I had gotten used to a pretty stiff and poor shifting action. Suddenly my shift movements felt exaggerated, the lever didn't need those "forceful" movements anymore.
If you also have 29k miles or more on the clock, check out those pivot surfaces. Perhaps your shifting could be much slicker too!
For a little while I had problems shifting; when I tried to downshift a few gears at once, I couldn't, because the lever would not come back up in the middle position.
At first I thought it was the linkage, so I lubed the ball-and-socket joints of the linkage and made sure that those were not binding. But that wasn't it, the problem turned out to be the actual pivot point of the shift lever, it had gotten really dirty and not lubed at all.
I removed the foot peg and then the foot peg bracket, which is the shaft part of the pivot of the shift lever. There is a groove in that shaft, probably to hold grease and keep that pivot lubricated.
In my case there was only stiff black gunk and some pitting on those pivot surfaces, nothing that resembled any lubrication.
After cleaning the pivot surfaces[edit], lubing the surfaces[/edit] and reassembling everything, I was happy that the downshifting problem was resolved, but also that shifting was now much slicker and smoother.
I had not noticed that I had gotten used to a pretty stiff and poor shifting action. Suddenly my shift movements felt exaggerated, the lever didn't need those "forceful" movements anymore.
If you also have 29k miles or more on the clock, check out those pivot surfaces. Perhaps your shifting could be much slicker too!