After becoming very aware of the 1st gear bang and mitigating it as much as possible, ie., starting in 1st and holding clutch at stoplights while in gear if i know it will soon change.. i made a boo boo the other day.. i rocketed past 2 cars in a passing section and then must have upshifted from 5th to 6th too lightly when i noticed the gear indicator went blank.. ugh! So i tried getting her into 6th and crunch crunch, same in 5th but it did go back in.. ive only done that once on a bike years back when i shifted into neutral to glide down a steep extended road and then ran into crunchville trying to get back into gear.. I'll need to pay attention not to lightfoot her again.. hoping i didn't do too much damage..
Has anyone else run into this situation before? I think if it ever happens again ill just coast to a stop instead of forcing into gear and getting the grind.

I have found neutral a few times on pussy footing shifts. What I do now, if at all possible, is clutch in and coast to a stop and start over to avoid the bang clang affect

I think if it ever happens again ill just coast to a stop instead of forcing into gear and getting the grind.

What I do now, if at all possible, is clutch in and coast to a stop and start over to avoid the bang clang affect

If you are lucky enough to stick in false Neutral, that's what I would do. No matter how embarrassing it is, just stop or maybe hit your emergency blinkers and coast to a very low speed if there's absolutely no shoulder to stop on in traffic. That ought to be a lot less harsh than jamming it into gear when the wheel is turning fast. I'm not sure you can match speeds properly after the engine and the transmission have been out of sync for a second or two. You bounce off the rev limiter, wait a second and then try to shift after the engine slows to idle....I think that;s asking for a BANG!

I banged mine like that a couple times with my quickshifter set too fast. I had chunks stuck to my magnetic drain plug for a few oil changes after that. If it fails to go into gear now on a clutchless shift, it seems to instantly bang back down to the previous gear and that doesn't feel much better. I have no trouble doing clutch shifts up or down and the quikshifter seems to be working great with a longer kill time. I expect the gear dogs or something will wear out at some point though because it obviously suffered some damage.

* Last updated by: Rook on 9/16/2020 @ 4:43 PM *

What crude said. Not a thing you can do and the worst thing is go for a gear. I've had my share with this trans so my deal is clutch in, throttle closed, coast till it goes back in by itself. This way, no load if the clutch was out and the tire added more force on the forks. Fork/dogs/teeth and I don't know what's worse. Fork bent is always popping out of gear. Teeth just keep adding up, and dogs with very little bit off the ends and cutouts is probably least damaged, sans being busted off/cracked. I let it find the gear on its own.

Thanks guys.. i will definitely not go for a gear next time and chalk it up to a 1-time thing which hopefully did little to no damage. In any case, i'm close to a year since last oil change by the previous owner so have fresh oil/filter on order for good measure.

I have yet to miss a shift on the 14 but the day is young. Good to learn from others what to do when it happens.

A question for those who know, does the type or viscosity of oil contribute to shift performance?

Great question and im also interested to know if so.. for the record the bike currently is running Mobil1 4T synthetic 10w40 and im switching to non-syn Kawasaki 10w40 for the next change.. since i change yearly and typically do 2-3000ish per year i feel comfortable with the switch.

The second number, "40" indicates how viscous the oil is at operating temp so as far as weight of oil is concerned, anythingW-40 should all be the same viscosity when you are shifting after the motor warms up. 40 weight oil is more viscous than 30 weight oil. 30 flows better but 40 must stick to parts better. What makes shifting smoother and more definite, sticking or flowing? I can't answer that. I only have used 40 weight oils but the Gen1 service manual specifies 30 weight oil for temps up to 86°F, 40 for up to 104°F and 50 weight oils for over 104°F. If you run the bike when temps fall between 86 and 104, you could try each of those. If your engine gets really hot, 50 might be the best.

As the oil degrades from use, there is more of a tendency to miss a shift but I would notice it first by the shifts between 1st and 2nd sticking in Neutral instead of passing right over Neutral as it should. This is not a big problem since 1st and 2nd are usually a pretty low mph shifts but it can give a guy a scare to shift up or down between 1st and 2nd and end up coasting in Neutral around a corner instead of on the throttle. Conventional oil and for me, Rotella T6 synthetic seem to wear out shortly after 2500 miles. I use Rotella T6 synthetic and change at 2500 so I don't usually run into any shifting trouble from worn out oil. It would seem likely that worn out oil would induce miss shifts under harsher loads if it does that in easy shifts between 1st and 2nd.

In my opinion, fresh oil is going to make the biggest difference in protecting against missing shifts. The exact weight is probably only going to produce a noticeable difference if you are doing extreme shifting often enough to be aware of what is better and what is worse. Chrly would probably have the answer to what the best weight for smooth shifts is. I wouldn't want to sacrifice flowability for better shifting. There's a lot more that needs lubrication than just the gearbox and you might not be able to feel how smoothly those other parts move.

* Last updated by: Rook on 9/21/2020 @ 4:15 PM *

Thanks Rook, fresh oil is good for every part of the engine. On my Harley, I use 20W-40 in the engine, 80-90 in the gear box and primary. On the 14, you are asking a lot from the oil as it needs to service the needs of the engine, gearbox AND clutch.

On the 14, you are asking a lot from the oil as it needs to service the needs of the engine, gearbox AND clutch.

I was thinking the same thing. I've heard of 90 weight gear oil. A 50 weight motor oil in the ZX-14 might be best for the gearbox but probably not as good for the engine. I have no idea what works best for the clutch. Maybe something more sticky and viscous.

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