Total Motorcycle Community Forums

ok, i just bought this bike about a week ago. it has 9000 miles and had been sitting in a barn for 3 years. i rebuilt the carbs and got it running pretty good (less fine adjustments) my problem is that i cant seem to get the bike into first gear, it will only take off from 2nd and if im not careful it pops out of 2nd. ive spoken with the previous owner and if i were to believe him, then the bike ran perfect before he stopped riding it, ive read about bad shift forks but if we assume that 3 years ago when the bike was put away that this was not a problem, wouldnt it stand to reason that the shift forks wouldnt be the cause? perhaps a gummed up transmission? and if so what could i pour in the crankcase to clean it out with out hurting anything? would seafoam do the trick? does any of this make any since and or has anyone experienced this? thanks

ok, after checking it out a little more it looks like i cant get any thing except 2nd and 3rd. ive cleaned and lubed the linkage and it still wont kick down to first no matter and wont upshift any higher.

Chances are at least one shift fork in the tranny is kaput. OK, I'm totally blowing smoke when I say that... but I have a Yama XS from the same era that I had to replace a shift fork after the previous owner crunched it. Similar problem before the fix.

Drop the pan/lower transmission cover and have a look... in my case I was able to do that without pulling the engine from the frame. Reassembly is an RTV job but the exploration is pretty quick and won't do additional harm (like messing around with engine cleaning gunks might).

before you go tearing anything apart you need to go to a virago group site.someone there may save you a bunch of heartache.