Bottom gear problems

[johnaskham]

Hi all,I bought my NTV from a "friend" in 2000. it is a 1997 model with 17,000 miles on the clock. I couldn`t have test run on it as it was not insured. But hey he is/was a friend. Immediately after buying it i noticed that it was jumping out of gear in first. To cut a long story short I pulled apart the motor to investigate.
The blind bearing at the back of the gearbox fell apart, the dogs on the bottom two gears were rounded off, and the selector forks were badly worn. I replaced all the defective parts along with a gasket set. This cost me £360.00
I have now clocked up 95.000 miles on the bike with no trouble. But, the bike has started to jump out of first gear again. I am quite prepared to strip the bike again, but I would like to know, has anyone experienced these kind of problems themselves. It has been suggested to me that stamping on the gear pedal can bend the selector forks, therefor causing the gears not to mesh properly, thus causing rounding off of said dogs.
I must add, that a previous owner of the bike was the "London Electricity Co." I guess this means that it had been used for courier work. This might explain the jumped on gear pedal theory. (I don`t jump on the gear pedal)
Thanks for reading this long blog, I hope to get some good advice, and similar experiences.
Regards John Askham

[McF]

Hi John

first I should warn you that a thread title like "bottom gear problems" is going to get you in a lot of trouble, especially when Jaz gets all excited and then realises you aren't having trouble with your 1970's flared trousers ;D ;D

I'm afraid the problem you're describing is a long standing one with our beloved aNTys; in fact you have done well to achieve 95k miles (or 78k since your rebuild), it becomes fairly common from around 60k miles onwards.

Many people experience the problem with second gear and just don't bother with it, going straight from high revs in first to third gear. On my last one I had the headache with first gear and got most frustrated because it was never predictable, sometimes it would engage and stay in, other times it jumped out every time.

I think heavy footed treatment of the gear lever will only cause damage to the gearbox internals. Your options are either to strip and rebuild the box, or learn not to rely on first gear. There is a good thread somewhere in the forum on the parts that wear and fail. If you want to consider this option, let us know and someone will search it out.