Monster 696 - stuck in 4th gear

[Madgadget]

Hi All,

My Monster 696 has just jammed in 4th gear, I had to limp home and it's now skulking in the garage... :(

I'm researching this on the forums, but at present it's more the older monsters that suffered this type of problem..

At present it looks to be a gearshift spring or major problem...

Can't believe this, the bike has just gone out of warranty by 15 days and it's only done 2000 miles :grump:

Has anyone else experienced this?

Cheers

[Funkatronic]

i would suspect your clutch first before a stuck gearbox,
bleed it through out and see if its working properly

[Madgadget]

Hi Funkatronic,

Thanks for the advice, the clutch seems to be ok as I managed to get home by slipping the clutch as it's stuck in the high gear (4th I think).

When I pull the clutch in the drive disengages, so wouldn't that suggest it's OK?

I just pulled out the gear selector detent ball to check that, but nothing obvious there...

Now I'm contemplating either trying to plead with Ducati as it's just gone out of warranty (although I bought it off of a chap about 3 weeks ago - I'm the 3rd owner) or pulling off the side of the engine to check a spring that seems to be related to this problem (although on older monsters and not on the 696 as far as I can find)

:(

[Mr Cake]

Three owners in 2000 miles?! Might be worth a check to see if its already had work done under warranty then swiftly moved on...

C

[Madgadget]

Hi All,

Well, I sat there looking at it for a minute and thought about this, then thought 'well it is very similar to the m600 I've just rebuilt' and then decided to have a nose.

I drained the oil and removed the left hand engine cover and found the problem, the dog leg gear selector arm was jammed on the gear selector drum, a push with a bit of nylon (so as to avoid damage) and it freed and its fine once more.

Nothing wrong with the springs that return the levers as has been found to cause gear jamming problems on older monsters.

I will post up a picture of what I found, but I could see the problem, the gear selector stuck in the down position, and I can see how this happened.

A more than firm stamp down on the gear lever would cause this, and I think it's related to the angle that the previous owner had set the gear lever.

It seems fine now :)

Oh, and the guy I previously bought it off called me and said he had never experienced any problems (which I believe). The first owner was the garage, so the main owner had done around 1800 miles on it.

[Madgadget]

As a reference to the solving of the stuck gear, here's a picture of the engine, after I fixed the problem (forgot to take one before :rolleyes: ):

http://www.avxk54.dsl.pipex.com/monster/DSC01046.JPG

Now the interesting thing was that the gearbox was stuck with the gear lever down, when I initially pulled the cover off, I saw that the gear selector arm was jammed.

If you look at this photo, what had happened was that as I had changed down, the gear selector arm had pulled at the pins on the gear selector drum (marked as (1) on the picture) , however, each pin sticks out and the secondary arm on the gear selector arm had jammed on the pins (marked as (2) on the picture).

http://www.avxk54.dsl.pipex.com/monster/gearleg.JPG

All I had to do was lift the gear selector arm up and back at the same time and it became free. The thing is, I can see why this could happen as each time you change gear whether you select up or down, the secondary arm just misses the previous pin by a fraction, 1-2 mm. Nothing was bent, nothing damaged, all springs etc were fine, by all accounts I would have said that this was a design issue I guess..

I'll do some more digging around.. :mand:

Cheers.