Okay so I just got a 02 954rr 27K bike looks pretty good but was not taken care of. I only paid 700 bucks for this bike what a steal right? lol Well the engine runs great, BUT. Okay when I start it up holding the clutch in sometimes starts and runs fine, let out on the clutch and it starts clanking and rattleing put it in gear and sometimes it stops and goes in gear but once you start going the clanking comes back but not as loud, other times it just kills the engine when you put it in gear. So I've pulled the cover and the clutch and when I turn the main shaft in neutral I remind you it's not turning freely at all, so this tells me it is something in the tranny, any ideas of exactly what in the tranny or otherwise. Heres a video of what its doing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWBREl-NoHk I already know you have to pull the lower half of the crankcase to get to the tranny my other question is in order to do that do you have to pull the pistons too or could I remove the pan and unbolt the connecting rods and just leave the pistons in the block? Needing some good advice from someones who has maybe torn into the tranny before. Thanks!

ps. I know most people just replace engine and tranny togeather, unfortunately I don't have the money to do this, truth is I b early have money to put gas in the thing right now, wife is laid off and already wanting me to sell as is, So I'm tring to find out exactly what bad parts in the tranny can cause this so I can just replace the bad/broken parts.

 

You can drop the oil pan and access the crank. Although you will limited on visibility you can see the transmission and inspect as much as possible. 954/929's have noisy clutch baskets when in neutral and no clutch. As far as riding, does it fall out of gear? When it dies on you does it act like the clutch was released to hard? You tried adjusting the clutch cable? Trying to help you with the small **** before we jump into the worse possible scenario

 

it's bad news man....


to access the actual transmission, you have to split the case.... and some of the bolts that hold the case together are stretch bots (meaning you have to replace them everytime you unbolt them), from the dealer they're around $80. i've replaced the tranny before (i bought a 954 that had a trashed transmission). you can get a whole used tranny off of ebay for around $100. if it's in neutral and the counter shaft isn't freely spinning, then something is wrong internally. if the gears are trashed (which they could be, especially if you got the bike for that price), you'll have to replace the whole transmission.

that noise sounds like mine did. and its "snagging" like mine did. the gear that you can see looks fine, and so did mine, but when i split the case, there where shards of gears everywhere, and it caused me to have to overhaul the engine, hone and cross-hatch the cylinders, and eventually i had to replace the head even (probably from an over rev.... which you could be in the same situation).

pull your oil pan, and see if there is any debris in the bottom of the tray. that way, you can have a better idea before you go and split the case... use a magnet to make sure

https://cbrforum.com/forum/attachmen...5&d=1294239055 there is a pic of what the gears looked like that came out of the bike i was talking about earlier.


as far as whether or not you have to pull the pistons rods and crank when you split the case.... are you pulling the engine? if you can get it upside down, you won't have to pull anything.... the bottom crank bearings are on the lower side of the case, so if you leave it upside down, you can leave everthing in there (crank, con rods, pistons) ... but i'd probably undo the rods, and pull the crank (just don't want to take the chance you know). you can leave everything else though.

 

No I'm trying to avoid pulling the engine if possible. I'm not familiar with bike engines at all, but I figured there's a best way to learn, if it comes apart it goes back togeather. I know that kinda sounds bad but I rebuild car engines all the time so I do have the mechanical ability and I've been reading the **** out of the service manual getting familiar with everything. But you say get it upside down you're talking pulling the engine right? Because i don't know of a way to get the whole bike upside down lol. Also I knew there was something wrong if it's in neutral and that shaft does not spin freely at all so I'm thinking the shaft could also be bent or cracked. But as far as leaving the engine in the bike what is the easiest way of pulling the tranny I would prefer to leave the engine it self alone it ran good as hell just the transmission problem, I would probally look more into the engine stuff in the winter but I'm trying to get it on the road for summer ASAP. And that pic my guess from the way it sounded when it was running mine is'nt too diff from that probally. Thank you for your help I can't get enough of it before I start tearing into it. Any one live near TN? lol

 

Yes when It would die on me it was like shifting into 3rd gear at idle and just letting off the clutch and would just kill it. Also I did'nt say that in neutral sometimes just reving it a bit would clunk and act like it was going in gear by itself. But sadly I don't think it's something small the shaft does'nt turn freely and something is broke somewhere. (sniffle wiping tear) My next question is will a 929 tranny fit, and are they still 6 spds? I've found on other forums where people say they do interchange but wasn't sure if anyone here actually knew of someone doing that.

 

"to access the actual transmission, you have to split the case.... and some of the bolts that hold the case together are stretch bots (meaning you have to replace them everytime you unbolt them), from the dealer they're around $80."

You have to pull the engine to split the case. Lots of work and not very fun. You are looking at a minimum of a 200-300 dollars in parts not mentioning the labor. Last summer I helped a buddy with his 954 engine install that he purchased used and the seller did not tell him that it slipped out of 2nd, what a pos. Long story short, we installed the engine, took it out, split the case, replaced a bunch of stuff, and reinstalled. Several hundred dollars later it runs great.

This is not fun or inexpensive, be warned.

 

I've herd from a few different people that you can do it with out pulling the engine, just not enough info to know exactly what I want to do yet. I've also researched that I could use a tranny out of a 929 I can't find any 954 trannys on ebay but there is one for a 929 on ebay for about a 100 bucks, so right now just in the process of gathering info, my budget is about 300 bucks so I'm deff. looking to do the work myself, just in the search of someone who's been in these things before that lives close by, but no luck yet. It's like finding a needle in a hay stack lol thanks for the info.

 

My trans made the same noise just before 2nd gear split itself in half and fell of the mainshaft. You have to pull the engine in order to split the case. Its not really that bad of a job. Just tedious and expensive buying new main bolts sealing washers and gaskets. Once you get the engine out and pull the head, clutch, oil and water pumps you can flip it upside down and pull the lower case half and easily access the trans. Theres no need to remove the crank or pistons.

 

Yea I think I've decided just to go ahead and pull the whole engine as bas as I don't want too it seems to be the easiest way. Do you have to have a bike stand to pull the engine?

 

I just did a write up on engine removal. Removing it is f*cking simple. You cannot, as a matter of face its f*cking impossible to put it back together wrong. Everything is color coded or completely different sizes. If you can tear the tranny apart then pulling the engine from frame is like airing a tire up. The only thing that could present any sort of problem is the spacers on the right side of the mount bolts. Left side uses no spacers on the motor mount bolts. THATS IT! Go to the how to section, see how simple it is.