neutral

[LOUD MOUSE]

SO ya will know.
IF YA PUT TO MUCH PRESSURE WITH THE SPRING THE RUBBER WILL BECOME A SPROCKET RATHER THAN REMAIN ROUND.
Guess how I know!. ...........lm

rusty,

How would i go about removing the Cam-follwer spring and when I have it, stretching it out/replacing?

Is this spring hard to get to? Or is it readily accessible

[davomoto]

SO ya will know.
IF YA PUT TO MUCH PRESSURE WITH THE SPRING THE RUBBER WILL BECOME A SPROCKET RATHER THAN REMAIN ROUND.
Guess how I know!. ...........lm

RUBBER? Where is there rubber in the shift mechanism, or the trans?

[LOUD MOUSE]

OPS!
I read cam follower spring and went to the cam chain adjuster.
Cam Follower Spring?. .......lm

SO ya will know.
IF YA PUT TO MUCH PRESSURE WITH THE SPRING THE RUBBER WILL BECOME A SPROCKET RATHER THAN REMAIN ROUND.
Guess how I know!. ...........lm

RUBBER? Where is there rubber in the shift mechanism, or the trans?

[rustywrench]

I'm actually referring to the spring that puts pressure on the shift drum stopper, as identified by the official shop manual. Had to look it up to get the actual nomenclature.
To do this you would have to remove the left side case, clutch and then the drum stopper. Probably not worth the effort unless you are in for other maintenance. Rusty

[jensen]

Hi,

I, as so many of us, had trouble with finding the neutral in the transmission. It’s not a big deal, but it is irritating and annoying especially living in suburb area’s as the Netherlands with its many roundabouts, traffic lights and traffic jams.

Not finding the neutral can have a few reasons, as there are :

Internal reasons :

- Worn transmission (like worn shift drum grooves, worn shift drum cam, weak shift stopper spring, worn shift drum pins, worn shift forks, shafts, etc).
- Worn clutch’s parts, wrong clutch adjustments.


External reason :

- Worn shift linkage (this bike acquires precise shifting, and that is almost impossible with a worn shift linkage).
- Worn clutch actuator mechanism


Engineering reasons :

- To many linkages with their necessary play, so adding up (cumulative) to an amount that even new transmissions are showing issue’s with finding the neutral (I heard this from different older people who bought these bikes new).
- Bad clutch design (probably the main reason), as Honda tried to make it better over the years with many different designs.


But, after solving all above issues, I still had issue’s with my CB72’67. This CB72’67 has the cush drive clutch, and a rebuild transmission (almost all parts are NOS). Also added a NOS clutch actuator mechanism, but still having trouble to find neutral sometimes. Precise adjusting of the clutch helps but not for long.

A few years ago I replaced the shift stopper spring for a stiffer one, and the results were positive but surely not 100 %.

The main reason for the neutral issue is the drag of the clutch, and that’s one of the reasons why Honda experimented with the clutch design (read : had lots of troubles and tried to fix it).
For good and smooth shifting it is important that the gears are not forced to transmitting power, it will increase the friction and makes shifting hard. This is one of the reasons why the clutch is needed, it disengages the power transmission between crank and transmission.

Since the neutral is between the first gear and second gear and the distances between the parts are small. If the clutch is not disengaging for 100%, friction between parts (due to force) will make you as a person apply force to the shift lever and doing so, glitch to second gear (coming from first).
It is very important that the clutch disengages for 100% otherwise one will have trouble to find neutral. When applying the clutch handle the clutch plates are forced to disengage each other, so in theory the clutch will disengage. But in between the clutch plates there is oil, and the oil introduces friction between the plates.

This is a long explanation, but oil will affect the clutch behavior, thus affecting finding neutral. In mine opinion it has nothing to do with the differences between full synthetic and mineral oils, but is has something to do with viscosity and additives and physical behavior of fluids.

To be completely independent of oil drag one could put in a dry clutch, but it seems a bit over the top on a street bike (it’s not a ducati).

I solved the issue by removing 50 % the friction area of friction discs, so that oil will disappear more quickly when disengage the clutch, thus resulting in less drag and better shifting.

Jensen

[marlin4622]

Jensen, great reply and it is very helpful in gaining knowledge in this area.

As you have stated that oil does play an integral factor in neutral positioning, what type of oil would you use? What type of oil do you currently run?

Hi,

I, as so many of us, had trouble with finding the neutral in the transmission. It’s not a big deal, but it is irritating and annoying especially living in suburb area’s as the Netherlands with its many roundabouts, traffic lights and traffic jams.

Not finding the neutral can have a few reasons, as there are :

Internal reasons :

- Worn transmission (like worn shift drum grooves, worn shift drum cam, weak shift stopper spring, worn shift drum pins, worn shift forks, shafts, etc).
- Worn clutch’s parts, wrong clutch adjustments.


External reason :

- Worn shift linkage (this bike acquires precise shifting, and that is almost impossible with a worn shift linkage).
- Worn clutch actuator mechanism


Engineering reasons :

- To many linkages with their necessary play, so adding up (cumulative) to an amount that even new transmissions are showing issue’s with finding the neutral (I heard this from different older people who bought these bikes new).
- Bad clutch design (probably the main reason), as Honda tried to make it better over the years with many different designs.


But, after solving all above issues, I still had issue’s with my CB72’67. This CB72’67 has the cush drive clutch, and a rebuild transmission (almost all parts are NOS). Also added a NOS clutch actuator mechanism, but still having trouble to find neutral sometimes. Precise adjusting of the clutch helps but not for long.

A few years ago I replaced the shift stopper spring for a stiffer one, and the results were positive but surely not 100 %.

The main reason for the neutral issue is the drag of the clutch, and that’s one of the reasons why Honda experimented with the clutch design (read : had lots of troubles and tried to fix it).
For good and smooth shifting it is important that the gears are not forced to transmitting power, it will increase the friction and makes shifting hard. This is one of the reasons why the clutch is needed, it disengages the power transmission between crank and transmission.

Since the neutral is between the first gear and second gear and the distances between the parts are small. If the clutch is not disengaging for 100%, friction between parts (due to force) will make you as a person apply force to the shift lever and doing so, glitch to second gear (coming from first).
It is very important that the clutch disengages for 100% otherwise one will have trouble to find neutral. When applying the clutch handle the clutch plates are forced to disengage each other, so in theory the clutch will disengage. But in between the clutch plates there is oil, and the oil introduces friction between the plates.

This is a long explanation, but oil will affect the clutch behavior, thus affecting finding neutral. In mine opinion it has nothing to do with the differences between full synthetic and mineral oils, but is has something to do with viscosity and additives and physical behavior of fluids.

To be completely independent of oil drag one could put in a dry clutch, but it seems a bit over the top on a street bike (it’s not a ducati).

I solved the issue by removing 50 % the friction area of friction discs, so that oil will disappear more quickly when disengage the clutch, thus resulting in less drag and better shifting.

Jensen

[jensen]

Hi,

Ho deer, it's not your fault but you asked the question.

But to give a quick and dirty answer, I use full synthetic oil 10W60 but.... I suggest to search the forum for additional info (search for oil as keyword and jensen as author).

And as I stated, the neutral issue was not solved with synthetic oil, I had more or less the same problems with mineral oil.

Jensen