i have a 97 f3 was on my way home from work the other day when i shifted into 2nd gear and hit the throttle the bike dropped in into neutral. I pulled the clutch in and hit it back into 2nd and rolled on the throttle again and it went back to neutral. Finally i shifted to 3rd and everything was fine. The old owner put car oil in the bike and i have replaced it with Rapsol oil and everything was fine for 8 months. I know the cam chain tensioner needs to be replaced. Any ideas? Sorry typing this up in the Denver airport on my vita

 

its not the oil. these bike commonly have this problem. your second gear is slipping because your shifing fork is worn thin. it will only do it in second gear. that tells you its not the clutch. ive done this repair myself. you have to drop engine split open the crankcase and change the left shifting fork.

 

or the dogs on the gears are worn out. A lot of guys do 2nd gear "clutch" wheelies and it destroys the dogs on the gears when the shift fork bends

 

Got the 3 shift forks and the shaft ordered for 20 bucks plus shipping. getting ready to take the engine apart and check to see if the gears are still good. Thanks for the help and I will let you know. Today I had to take her to get inspected and all the gears ran fine with no problems so maybe the left fork is just getting ready to go bad.

 

make sure you use brand new forks. no reason to do used

 

Here are the pictures of what I am seeing with my shifting problem. The left shift fork is definitely bad you can see were it was ground down. The drum and gear dogs look good on the tranny. Also the clutch looks to be warn out take a look at the last picture.

 

when i did my brother bike i didnt change anything but the shifting fork. worked fine. (left one) crazy he lived in austin too. i would go with a brand new fork. no reason to go used on this one. just my opinion

 

I have seen a bunch of CBR F2, and F3's running around Austin. Thought I saw a full black one in butter cup creek this afternoon. Found out after I pulled the engine and took it all apart I didn't need to take it off the frame to get to the shift forks hahah ooh well. I am waiting on all the seals, new forks, and clutch plates & springs to come in until then it will be taken apart in the shed

 

i dont see how you could take it apart and put it back together still in frame. its not hard putting engine back in frame by yourself. trust me on this. what you do is line up the bottom bolt first. you can do this without having to lift the engine. once you have the bottom bolt in place get a motorcycle strap ( the kind you just pull and it tightens up, works better than wratchet strap) lift up on engine and tighten the strap as you go. once you get the engine to the upper engine mount bars its gonna want to butt up against the right one. just get a bar and wedge it passed it and your home free. this technique has served me well many times.

 

I have a moto lift which is what we used to get it out so I can use it to lift the engine up no problem. now its just a waiting game till all the parts and gaskets come in. One question is there supposed to be a gasket between the oil pan and the engine? when I took mine off there wasn't one and I think that's were my small leak was coming from. I couldn't find the part number on cheapcycle parts.