False neutral

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htown16

htown16

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Just getting my 71 back on the road, less than 50 miles. Getting false neutrals. Occasionally from 2 to 3 and about half the time on 3 to 4. Also, 1st hard to initially find. Where to start?
 
Gearbox are not my favourite part, get underneath and remove bolt holding plunger and spring.
 
Took it completely apart. Everything looked in good shape. Replaced the layshaft bearing with a roller and shimmed most of the play out. Reassembled with new gaskets and orings and SKF seal on the kickstarter.
 
Probably the spring that centers the shifting pawl inside the outer cover is not bent correctly to hold the pawl in the center.
I also had one that had a lot of neutrals and found the wrong o-ring had been used on the camplate shaft, making it hard to turn. Just installing the correct o-ring fixed it.
 
comnoz said:
Probably the spring that centers the shifting pawl inside the outer cover is not bent correctly to hold the pawl in the center.
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I agree - needs care to set the gap above and below the spring contact with the pawl. I used a feeler gauge, five thou from memory, worked a treat after that!
 
htown16 said:
Just getting my 71 back on the road, less than 50 miles. Getting false neutrals. Occasionally from 2 to 3 and about half the time on 3 to 4. Also, 1st hard to initially find.
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htown16 said:
Took it completely apart.
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Quadrant could be one tooth out on the camplate?
A badly adjusted ratchet spring, in my opinion, would be more likely to result in 'missed' changes rather than false neutrals.
 
Another vote for the ratchet/self centering spring, aka the 'hair pin' spring.
 
I had a similar problem after overhaul. False neutral or not engaging. Switched to a lighter weight gear oil and that fixed it.
 
L.A.B. said:
Quadrant could be one tooth out on the camplate?
A badly adjusted ratchet spring, in my opinion, would be more likely to result in 'missed' changes rather than false neutrals.
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A tooth off on the quadrant would result in missing either high or low gear.
 
I have had problems with shimming the layshaft...the clearance sometimes disappears after some use. Not sure why but I often pull on the kickstart lever to make sure the layshaft still has some freeplay. Neutral seems to be the best time to check it.
I will vote for the shifting pawl spring, too.
 
I got the cover off and did some checking. I can get all 4 gears by levering the quadrant arm. I've got 40 thou clearance between the arm and bottom of the window in first and same between arm and top of window in 4th. So I assuming it is indexed correctly. I have about 16 thou clearance each side between the pawl and the spring arms. Probably too much. I can't remember if I replaced the spring during the rebuild. Anyway, got a new one coming. If the new one is still too wide I'll tweak it. Rob SS mentioned 5 thou. Old Britts picture shows hardly any. Had this problem on my BSA. Just a slight tweak in the spring made the difference. The BSA has an eccentric mount that you can adjust to slightly vary tension on the spring.
Never use 3 bond on a cover you may have to remove. Thought it would never come loose. Really hated to take it off as the kickstarter wasn't leaking on this one. Hope it stays that way. Has the SKF 7815 seal.
 
I use never seeze on the gasket and it just falls off when I need to remove the cover. Saves lots of time
 
Bernhard said:
Cannot find this on a UK website at all, can you post this information here please.
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Not quite sure what you're asking but NEVER-SEEZ is a very common product designed for threads. An unintended use is a thin smear on gaskets to make their removal easy. If the gasket surface is in good condition then the gasket itself will do all the sealing, no need for a sealer. No more chipping off small bits of gasket especially around studs. It works very well on the two transmission gaskets, timing cover, oil manifold gasket, primary to motor gasket etc.
 
seattle##gs said:
Not quite sure what you're asking but NEVER-SEEZ is a very common product designed for threads. An unintended use is a thin smear on gaskets to make their removal easy. If the gasket surface is in good condition then the gasket itself will do all the sealing, no need for a sealer. No more chipping off small bits of gasket especially around studs. It works very well on the two transmission gaskets, timing cover, oil manifold gasket, primary to motor gasket etc.
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Never heard of never seez in the UK is it the same as copaslip ?
It sounds like it is?
I always use grease on gaskets unless the casing is really bad, then I'd use gasket cement
 
the company that makes the stuff is called BOSTIK. They make a few varieties of it and I think any one of them would do the job. perhaps the grease would too. Other companies make it too.
 
Seems the UK brand CopaSlip would be similar to NeverSeez or just any anti seize product. I followed Mick Hemmings advice from his gearbox dvd and just left gaskets dry. No leaks. On timing cover I chickened out and used blue Hylomar dressing. I know it does not harden and find it quite good.
 
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