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1984 Yamaha Royale. went into 4th gear and shifting into 5th it went into neutral. pulled over and had a hard time getting it back into 1st gear. have to really shake shifter up and down to get it to go into any gear while on stand with tire off ground. Do I have to pull engine to get into transmission?

Hello David and welcome to the forum. I too have had a similar occurrence on my 87 and 99 Concours. It will sometimes slip in between 6th and 5th or 5th and 4th. I can kinda hear the gears rattling around, so I step on the shifter really hard and it goes into gear. I don't think it damages anything, so I keep on riding.

I had a similar problem reviving my bike. After a few oil changes, every 1500 miles, I think I got all the gunk (technical term) out of it. I have had no more troubles. I also took care to lube and clean the shifter linkage.

Could be coincidence?

My Hurricane was always stubborn with its shifting till I replaced the clutch. Sometimes it would want to go between gears or bounce out of gear if i wasn't slow and careful with shifts. I always suspected the gear box had some wear and i just had to live with it. Once I changed the clutch out everything is perfect. Honda saw fit on this model to install an anti judder set up as they call it. In effect the inner most clutch friction has a wave washer style spring pressing it out off the center hub. This makes a very minute amount of drag on the whole clutch even when completely disengaged. My inner disk was worn to the point it wasn't providing this slight drag. New clutch = proper friction zone and smooth decisive shifts. There are a lot of bikes out there on the road that would benefit from a new clutch. The vast majority of people who's bike i have worked on haven't noticed it and under normal driving conditions they don't slip. I need to put a clutch in my magna at some point for this reason. When I was in the mountains with my nephew on it on a long steep hill merging into 75 mph traffic I could make it slip. My night hawk was the same way. Another change I noticed in the Nighthawk and my FZR after their new clutches is its easier to get them in neutral now. Every bike i have replaced a clutch in has had some noticeable change in shift character.

If the trans pops out of gear then the shift forks are bent is the most common problem. Or it can be the "dog-ears" of the gears, the parts that lock the gear in place to the one next to it. Yes you have to pull the motor to get to the trans. That bike with the size had trans problems like the 1500 goldwings mostly from pulling trailers.