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I was on a 1,200 mile trip on my 04 1150r (that has 10500 miles on it) and about 200 miles into the ride while I was doing about 60mph all of a sudden felt like it kicked out of gear, my engine revved severely and my tachometer shot up – this all happened for about 2-3 seconds and then everything was normal – this happened again about 5 minutes later. It happened one more time at about 400 miles into my trip. When it happened the last time, I stopped and tried to find a BMW dealer – none within 200 miles. I began thinking about any changes I had made to the bike. This may not have anything to do with the symptoms, but I remember when I was cleaning my bike before I left, I was messing with the little adjustment wheel on the clutch lever. I thought it had only to do with how much tension there was on the handle. It had been set at 3 and I had thought it was a little hard to depress off and on in traffic, so I moved it to the 1 setting. It may not have anything to do with what was happening to my bike, but the remaining 800 miles and since I have had do issues with it kicking out of gear.

I’ve got two questions:
1. Does what happened to me sound like a spline issue?
2. Could the adjustment I made to my lever have any influence under any circumstances to the symptoms described above?

Any help is much appreciated. I am worried!

Doesn't sound to me like a clutch/IS spline issue. My understanding is that a failure there is fatal so if they were shot, you'd likely be stranded by the side of the road. It is also probably not related to the lever adjuster. All that does is rotate a cam in lever to move it closer/further from the handlebar.

If the bike is jumping out of gear, is seems to me that it is a transmission problem. Not sure what the real culprit is - you have low miles on the bike and wear shouldn't really be an issue though. Hopefully one of the more tech saavy members will have some better ideas.

Charlie

Do you have handguards on your bike? If the clutch lever's adjusted hard up against the handguard, wind pressure can actuate your clutch.

At 60 mph, were you in 6th gear?

No handguards

I think I was in 6th gear - I was slowing down on the highway as I was in some traffic the first two times. The last time I definitely was in 6th - I was probably doing 70+

The reason I ask, is that I had the same problem, also without handguards. I did not perceive it as kicking "out of gear" so much as kicking down a gear. I did not get a sensation of loss of forward motion like it going into neutral. Rather the revs shot up and held as it dropped from 6th to 5th. I don't have an exact count on the number of times this would happen prior to this year's Bash. Somewhere between 15 and 25% of the time, depending... Depending on what? (I'll get there...)

I also had a much more frequent problem of "hanging" in neutral as I did my 1st to 2nd upshifts. "Alright, I think I can take this '89 camaro of the line. Green! Alright, time for 2nd. rRRAAAARRRRR! *%&^! Where's 2nd? Ah hell, he beat me". This would happen up to 50% of the time. Again this problem seemed to go away after the Bash.

So what happened at the Bash? Was my Rockster happy to play with all his long-lost cousins after a prolonged period by himself? Well, this was my first motorcycle trip, I had not put that much concentrated riding in for that many consecutive days. My hangups and bang-downs dropped significantly, to the point of rare exceptions now.

My point is that I believe my shifting technique improved and that is what caused the problems to go away. Shifting technique has been discussed thoroughly here, just use the handy search feature. I will leave you with the two tips I found most helpful: preload the shift lever, and use less clutch. A LOT less clutch.

Sorry for the long-winded post. Hope this helps.

jfslater98:

Thanks for the reply. I definitely agree with your new shifting techniques - this took me a while to get used to after a bunch of jap bikes. But what I can't figure out is the slipping out of a gear - whether it goes back into same gear or a lower one - I was nowhere near the clutch or gear shifter

I have never had this happen, but I have read about it happening. Could be something contaminating the clutch disc, ie. oil or brake fluid. Either case would be getting worse by know. Or maybe you need to lay off the medication a little.

Just happened to me yesterday as well. Felt like the bike went into neutral for a second or two. then all was back to normal

johnnyjs1 wrote:Just happened to me yesterday as well. Felt like the bike went into neutral for a second or two. then all was back to normal

Did you just get your bike repaired though?

GypsyRR wrote:

johnnyjs1 wrote:Just happened to me yesterday as well. Felt like the bike went into neutral for a second or two. then all was back to normal

Did you just get your bike repaired though?

Yes I did. I may have been flogging it a bit, but....everything seems to be ok.

This happened a few times many miles back ie when I had done less than 10 000 miles. I was sure that it jumped from 6th into a false neutral and then I kicked it back into gear. It has happened about 4-5 times in all.

I have now done nearly 30 000 miles and it happened again after I bought new boots!!! I obviously did not have the flex and feel in the boot and just did not get it into gear properly. I try and pre-load the lever all the time.

This sounds like another "they all do that......"

Croc