wont stay in 1st gear

I know what you mean idk, and thanks or the detent tutorial that's good stuff, had the head ported and with my exhaust ,1st is now optional. I paid a lot of money to have the tranny done, sure would like it right. great response guys, faaaaast, but I have a question , would the detent spring cause all gears to pop out, or just 1st. I pulled the motor and sent it out and did the work in my sons garage, and had to drive it home , about 3 or 4 miles every thing else seemed ok,its like once you give it any power, it pops out. seems like when in 1st it will stay there until you give it a little throttle. just would like to understand whats going on , would like to be able to speak to the shop and at least seem reasonably up to speed on whats going on. thanks again for the advice

happyhenry said:

I know what you mean idk, and thanks or the detent tutorial that's good stuff, had the head ported and with my exhaust ,1st is now optional. I paid a lot of money to have the tranny done, sure would like it right. great response guys, faaaaast, but I have a question , would the detent spring cause all gears to pop out, or just 1st. I pulled the motor and sent it out and did the work in my sons garage, and had to drive it home , about 3 or 4 miles every thing else seemed ok,its like once you give it any power, it pops out. seems like when in 1st it will stay there until you give it a little throttle. just would like to understand whats going on , would like to be able to speak to the shop and at least seem reasonably up to speed on whats going on. thanks again for the advice

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The detent spring keeps tenson on the detent wheel which rklls from each sprocket/gear position location. This all is on the end of the shift drum that moves the shifting forks. Withoit the spring tension the detent wheel is not held in the sprocket location for the gear so it pops or shifts out of gear and in some cases back in. It also depends on what the guy who did the transmissjon did. Im not sure if he even pulled the detent stuff or just the shafts and replaced gears and dog rings.

The detent spring is what holds the bike in gear. If it is broken then it can pop out of gear. However, the first time it broke in my bike it stayed stuck in 1st gear. Fortunately I was only a mile or so from home so i rode home in 1st gear. The 2nd time it broke it would not stay in 3rd or 4th gear without maintaining pressure on the shifter pedal. Not a major problem as most of the distance home was cruising in 5th gear - from San Francisco to Baltimore. The symptoms have varied, but along similar lines for others as well.

I believe that the thing that causes it to brake is incorrect installation method. If you use something with a (relatively) sharpish edge to pry the spring onto its location position then you risk putting a micro-nick in the spring - creating a weak point which eventually brakes.

Mine would have been removed/installed with the update kit, so I can't comment on how it was done, but it broke not too many (thousand) miles later. I repaired it using a pair of plyers and it broke 10-20 thousand miles later. I then repaired it using a round rod to slide the spring on and 60 or 70 thousand miles later it is still fine.

my detent spring or whatever has not worked since the rebuild.the 1st time I tried to move the bike after the rebuild it seemed to go into 1st ,but without the usual click/clunk.i onlt knew it was in 1st because I have a gipro gear indicator and it will show n then 1st and my neutral light goes out.but the second you let the clutch out, bingo, neutral light. let me ask you this .. do we have a general consenses that someone ''screwed the pouch'' installing the detent spring . I hate to draw conclusions

oh ya heres the other thing ,I had a update kit . all kinds of updated triumph parts for the tranny 2nd gear, etc I gave them all the tranny stuff gaskets everything the update kits are pretty extensive and there was some other stuff I asked them to use the new parts at reassembly, no problem .I think there was an updated spring and detent arm in the kit. I must say that the shop doing the work is the best in the business, some times **** happens, I guess. the work done was to undercut the gears and a billet 4th the one I blew originally .the work was pretty extensive.

happyhenry said:

my detent spring or whatever has not worked since the rebuild.the 1st time I tried to move the bike after the rebuild it seemed to go into 1st ,but without the usual click/clunk.i onlt knew it was in 1st because I have a gipro gear indicator and it will show n then 1st and my neutral light goes out.but the second you let the clutch out, bingo, neutral light. let me ask you this .. do we have a general consenses that someone ''screwed the pouch'' installing the detent spring . I hate to draw conclusions

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Did you/do you let the clutch out on neutral before engaging first gear? If it’s jumped out a few times you may have done damage to the gears themselves.
If your detent spring is shot it will not stay in any gear, not just first, and the shift lever will be quite sloppy.

thanks to all who have responded, it must go back. I don't want to damage a new/rebuilt tranny playing around with it, to canberrar3 yes tried all manner ,and shifting into 2nd momentarily etc. it has no positive engagement like it once had, like 2nd does now. there have been no ugly noises so far, grinding banging and such. think im gonna leave it at that.