20 Glaring Problems With Honda Bikes Everyone Chooses To Ignore

[Cormanus]

I find that, when the motor is hot, it can be hard to get the CB from 1st to neutral, particularly if the bike is stationary. It can be really sticky and, when it will move often flicks straight into 2nd from where I have to go back to neutral.

[max]

Funny you should say that Cormanus, i have that effect too as the bike gets more miles on it, that effect is 4 times more pronounced on my old cb550, cold, piece of cake to get into neutral but when hot it's near impossible, so i get around that by selecting neutral whilst still rolling to a stop, no problem then.

Not that it would make a difference but would be nice to know what made it do that, i guess it's to do with the selector drum but it's not very intuitive to me.

[Wisedrum]

Sometimes the gearbox in the area around 1-neutral-2 gear is a bit sticky and stiff as Cormanus wrote. Don't know why, maybe it has a life of its own with to me unkown parameters. In other shifting processes the gears can easily be found as cutting with a knife through butter. I take it as it is. Sometimes a bit of extra gas by turning the throttle helps before shifting again and the gears or neutral find their way.

Wisedrum

[Tezza_imp]

My 73 Kawasaki 900 has a positive neutral finder. It makes it impossible to shift the bike into second gear from neutral when stationary. I have not seen this on other brands of motorcycle. Maybe it was a patented design.

[GoldOxide_imp]

Funny you should say that Cormanus, i have that effect too as the bike gets more miles on it, that effect is 4 times more pronounced on my old cb550, cold, piece of cake to get into neutral but when hot it's near impossible, so i get around that by selecting neutral whilst still rolling to a stop, no problem then.

Not that it would make a difference but would be nice to know what made it do that, i guess it's to do with the selector drum but it's not very intuitive to me.

(+1) Similar experience; use final rolling stop distance to slip into neutral.

[the Ferret]

Hmmm 45,000 miles and mine goes into neutral easy as pie all the time.

[GoldOxide_imp]

At stop, mine won't slip into neutral 100% of the time, but better than 95% of the time when the engine is nice 'n' hot. I view this a par-for-the-course for Japanese bikes and think not much more than that.

- - -

That said, the less than 5% is made up to neutral by a slight move forward or backward of the bike. Again, I don't think about this.

[clearviewx]

Hmmm 45,000 miles and mine goes into neutral easy as pie all the time.

+1

[peterbaron]

Hmmm 45,000 miles and mine goes into neutral easy as pie all the time.

+1

+1
^^ +1 with 38,000 kms

[Charlie Bravo_imp]

Finding neutral can be problematic, but there are workarounds. If you're stopped and can't find neutral, keep it in first, rev it just a bit, preload the shifter just a bit, let the clutch out until it just begins to catch, pull the clutch in and snick into neutral.
If you had to stop quick and you're stopped in second or third gear, let the clutch out just until it begins to grab, pull it in, drop a gear, repeat as necessary.