Hi. I have a 1987 CBR600F. Whenever I'm driving 45 mph and up, should I be able to hold my clutch in and shift freely up and down through all the gears? I can shift down, but not back up until I slow down. Should I tighten up my clutch cable? Thanks.

 

If you're talking about going 45mph in say 3rd gear then holding the clutch and shifting all the way up to 6th then 'yes'. Being as old as the bike is the gears may be worn a little making it difficult to shift multiple times. As long as it shifts o.k. (up and down) one at a time then I'd leave it alone because the work to correct it is probably more $$ than the bike is worth.

 

Here's what actually happened. I was coming off the freeway on the offramp, doing about 60. I shifted into neutral. For whatever reason. So then I tried to shift back into 5th or so, but I had to slow down to about 10 mph to shift into 2nd. I have a lot of free play in my clutch handle. I just thought that might be some of the problem. The bike's worth $1300. Does it cost that much to get tighten up that cable that goes to the clutch? It looks like it would take about 20 min or so to do...

 

For normal upshifting you don't even need to use the clutch. Taking slack out of the clutch is easy enough though. There should be an adjustor at the lever -- if it isn't there it'll be where the cable connects to the actuator arm. Run the adjustor out to tighten the cable. If it's all the way out and you still have a lot of play then the cable is stretched to the max and you'll need a new one.

 

I'm assuming that when you came off the highway ramp in nuetral that you were coasting and that the engine revs were down, if you had given it a small shot a gas to equal out the revs between the tire speed and engine speed it should have gone up.

 

When you are doing 60 and in neutral, shifting to 2nd gear could be difficult. I am not surprise you have to slow down. The reason is the main shaft and secondary shaft are at two different speeds. And at 60 they have a big speed different going to neutral. If you reved the bike a little it might help to engage it. When you are taking off and shift at around 3000-4000 rpms it does into gear real easy because the shafts are very close to the same speed. Get the idea.... the bigger the differance the harder it is to get into gear. A newer bike would have no problem doing this but the age of your bike could be the reason. Nothing to worry about though. It is just normal. Hope my little view will help.