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ok now that i have an answer to my first transmission question now i have another. now i was told one of my fork's may be worn or broke. so where would i start my search to find a replacement part the bike is a 1982 yamaha xs400j maxim. now since it is so old i more then likely can't just walk into the yamaha dealer and have one ordered can i? now where live there is no motorcycle bone yard's i believe the closest place is by detroit which is about 4 hours from where i live. so it would probably be easier to buy a new one. now my second question is would it be something fairly simple to do myself or should i take it to a professional. and my last question considering the year of the bike and the retail value of the bike is it even worth fixing should i just ride it like it is and say good enough for my first bike. i have no clue what i should do with this matter so any input would be great thanx's

There is nothing wrong with posting additional questions in the same thread....

The problem is that you probably need to do some disassembly to figure out your exact problem. That means draining the oil and doing some wrench work to inspect the transmission...then buttoning it back up. In my case, I found broken fork bits lying in the bottom of the engine. You may have a harder troubleshooting problem on your hands but in any case you should be able to work through the gears and see what is wrong.

Yamaha may have the parts you need. They will be expensive though. When faced with a similar problem I started by looking online (specifically in forums and mailing lists dedicated to bikes like mine) and within a few weeks I found someone nearby with a blown engine (they'd folded a conrod...completely toasted the engine) they wanted to sell. It was sitting in their garage 'cause they'd already replaced the engine in their bike. It cost me $50 (maybe less, it's been a while) and a 40 mile drive. I was able to strip a bunch of parts out of it, not just the transmission parts I needed.

It may be easier to just leave the bike busted... even so you should still keep an eye open for a parts engine in case you get lucky.

i will keep my eye out for a part's bike but until then i will just ride on. it is odd though cause when i bought the bike and i was on my way home i kept thinkin to myself that there should be another gear but never paid anymore attention to it until the other day when i got to lookin at it and i seen there was supposed to be a 6th gear there so i thought maybe i was wrong so i went for a ride and counted as i went through the gears and once you reach 5th that is the end of the line it's like there is not nothing there i would have thought it would go in the gear but not have any momentem kinda like if it were in neutral ( that probably sound's dumb)my buddy had a 600 ninja and i rode that bike more then he did and it did not have a second gear in it so you had to double click it to get in third so that is where i was thinkin it would be like being in netural. it does not seem to be bad without 6th gear there even on the highway going 70mph the rpm's are between 5 and 6 grand that's not to high is it now i am not going to damage the bike by riding it at such speed's in 5th gear am i. well once again thank you for your input.

alot of scrapyards will ship to you, check online. Also, keep an eye on Ebay for parts, check their ebay stores and then contact them asking about parts for your bike.

thanks for the info northernpete i will email them and see what they can do for me thanks again brother.