ZX6R Downshift Kwacked

[and]

My gear lever decided to stop self-centring itself today, prefering to take a leisurely position at the bottom of its travel.

Fine going up the gears (the lever returns to centre), but going down I have to lift the lever first (without going up the box) and then push it down -> pain when coming to a halt.

I suspect some kind of return spring is missing or broken - any ideas ?

Cheers, And

[mel]

Can't be 100% on a ZX6 but on ZX7's you do have a small spring clip on the inside of the gear box cover, it's an easy job at the moment drain oil,off cover, find clip that wil be in there somewhere, refit or replace, new gasket, new oil (and filter while your at it) back togeather away you go. Do do it now though as you've currently got a little bit of spring rattleing around inside where it shouldn't be and they have a nastie habit of getting though the tiniest of gaps and ending up in a location that starts meaning a full engine strip down and £££££££££, another little tip is there's a guy normally on ebay called "fiche man" or something that does the genuine kawasaki dealer parts and assembly micro fiches on CD rom for about a tenner, that way you'll be able to see whats coming.

[mel]

and if you email me I'll send you a gif of the schematic on a ZX7, but I PH forwarding doesn't allow attachements so I can't send it via ted.

[kwacker]

If you email me I have the fiches. Very handy indeed.

Kwacker

[and]

Thanks Mel, sent you my email address.

Strange to have replies only from fellow TVR **and** ZX owners !

[and]

A very helpful Kawasaki main agent service mgr (yes - they do exist !) called Greg immediately recognised this as a common problem he's "seen at least 30 times". He reckons that it's a seizure in the one of the lever joints behind the footrest hangar caused by a build up of crud.

I have ridden it everyday through winter and progressively found the shift getting stickier (even lubing weekly) so this sounds plausible.

I need either a strong 6mm allen key and some grease, or he will fix it for 50 quid = 10 minutes work. = some saturday DIY !

A word of warning though. I rang 2 other Kawasaki "specialists" with my prognosis and none of them offered any alternative views on the symptoms, yet none of them warned that if a spring had fallen off inside the gearbox housing it was dodgy to keep riding it for a prolonged period.

I'm also tolds that it should be a standard service item so I'm slightly miffed that the guys who basically charged me 140 quid for an oil change + "checks" in October seem to have missed this one.

So no ZX6 gearbox assembly fiche for you yet Kwacker - unless of course this doesn't fix it.

And

[and]

Did the job yesterday and not only is the prob fixed but I now have a much nicer gearchange. Took off the foothanger, undid the allen bolt that holds the assembly together and found lots of crud inside the gear-lever end seizing up the mechanism.

Might do something similar to smooth out the footbrake when the weather cheers up.