These bikes are so simple, there is nothing to fear in pulling the bottom half off. If it's a problem with rounded off dogs and a worn shift fork at least it's an easy fix. Common and easy.
Someone has to have some spare gears they can sell you and if not it is easy to have them welded and ground back with an undercut.
We recently had a BMW1200 4 cylinder with the same problem and the guys at R&D in Clearwater FL did a magic job of fixing them. If their work can stand 153HP of BMW power, I'm sure they can handle anything a CB77 throws at it.
I just wish I had known about them earlier.
2nd gear sketchysame oldLarry, I just went through the exact same thing in the last few months with my '63 CB77, you can read the forum posts in the "Fresh Meat" thread under Restorations. My trouble was worn shift forks, worn gears where the shift forks do their business, rounded gear dogs and worn countershaft bushing. I X-ed the gears also and like it much better.
Just as a point of reference, I had a series of problems with a CB77 racer some years ago with it spitting out of gear. Once may have been my clumsy feet, but it got steadily worse.
What happened was that the corners of the dogs were slightly rounded from normal wear and tear and as they spat out that damaged the shift fork and the groove it rides in. It's possible that the initial problem was wear on the fork and groove preventing sufficient depth of engagement. One thing is for sure is that it won't fix itself or get better by ignoring it. I did try that approach but no success to be found there. Good luck with the voyage of discovery.
first 2nd gear, now starter questionYeah, I hear that "ignore it and maybe it will go away". I have actually had that work with slipping clutches on bikes coming out of storage...
I wrestled the engine out of the frame today and flipped it ready for the transmission analysis. But on the way, I disassembled the starter planetary reduction gearset. The motor would run, but not turn the engine. I figured probably a bad freewheel clutch, but it was tight when I tugged on the top run of the chain, and freewheeled when I pulled on the bottom run. However, when I pulled the gearset apart, the ring gear (outside the planetary gears) was not fixed to the housing, but free to turn. Well that could sure explain the starter problem! What is supposed to fix that ring gear? It has a "notch" on its outer radius, but there is not a corresponding "tit" on the housing. Anyway, I plan to extract the gears tomorrow, and will try to post photos of likely culprits ASAP. Thanks for all the advice so far, Larry in Pasadena
Starter freewheel.After going through mine I have a similar issue. After acouple of crank cycles of 5 seconds it just freewheels. The clutch felt awesome when I had it apart. One of the things I did was lightly lubed w/ oil, which I read here is probably not such a good idea. Second is that replacing the rollers and springs for the clutch ussually corrects this condition. Just thought ID pass it on . Good Luck w/ your trans.
Brent 64' CB77
65' CB160
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