Very clunky shifting

[AzBob_imp]

When I first got my CB750 in 1976, I took it back to the dealer and complained about clunky shifting and he told me I just didn't know how to shift it right....I think for the most part he was right.

I thought I knew how to shift a manual transmission until I rented a Ford CL9000 semi truck 30 years ago and drove it on a 400 mile round trip. To make a long story short, I burned the clutch out of it coming back and had to drive it all the way home without a clutch.

I found out, when shifting up gears, you always need to accelerate right before you shift and as you let off the throttle, it will synchronize and "float" out of that gear hit the higher gear in sync.

Shifting down, you always need to bump the throttle to help synchronize the gears and help them "float" together.

I'm sure motorcycles like cars have "synchronizing" rings that help mesh gears together even if you don't help by shifting correctly, but helping them will make things go smoother.

The funny thing about the semi truck, is going up or coming down in gears was not a problem without the clutch unless you missed one or tried to skip a gear, then it was anyone's guess what the proper synchronizing was needed so you almost had to come to a complete stop and start over.

Another funny thing is without a clutch, the only way to stop at a stop light, was you had to accelerate in 1st gear right before you wanted to stop, then pull it into neutral, but under de-acceleration it wouldn't come out of 1st. Then, luckily 1st gear was so low, to take off you just had to jam it into first without the clutch and it would take off immediately.

That was the first and last time I ever drove a semi truck ;-)



PS: I agree, tightening chain tension does also help, I'm not sure if it actually makes the shifting smoother or it creates a more direct drive that reduces the impulse-momentum the slack in the chain can build up. More physics than I want to thing about, but is a link about it: [url=http://www.physicsclassroom.com/calcpad/momentum]http://www.physicsclassroom.com/calcpad/momentum

Constant-mesh, sequential motorcycle transmissions do not have synchronizers. The transmission is always in gear and all you're doing by shifting is moving the shifter fork. With enough of a push or pull of the shift lever, it will always work, however you may grind the dogs off, eventually, or bend the fork.