09 KLX250SF won't shift into first
 

I've had my Klr650 for a while and enjoyed it so much I decided to get the wife involved. At the end of last summer a dealer in Ft. Collins was selling KLX250sf's for 1300 bellow msrp. So, I bought one for my wife.

The thing is that it's so much fun that I've been riding it sometimes instead of my KLR. The other day I low-sided in some gravel and bent the crap out of the shifter. No big deal I nursed it back to my shop, took the bent shift lever off, heated it up with the torch, and bent it back into submission.

Now it won't shift into first. It's not the lever it clears everything just fine and the rest of the gears are working just fine.

So, anybody got any ideas what may be wrong? I'm gonna take the side cover off the engine tomorrow to check if I can see anything out of whack.

Matt

THANKS!!
I'm taking the cover off right now. I'm hoping this is all that's wrong with mine.

Well, that was it! I'm glad you posted a link to the other thread. It would have taken me a lot longer to figure out if I hadn't seen the pics.

Thanks WhiskeyTF,
Matt

As I read the title of your thread I thought "Hey, I know what his problem is". Glad the pics helped. I thought about just bending the pin back straight but, it's a $7 part, and probably not worth the risk. I almost bought a new gasket but didn't and the old one worked fine.
Dan

I tried to bend it back straight but after a few attempts decided to just order a new part. I can't believe that in my low speed low side the shifter had a hard enough impact to bend that pin.

I have a KLR as well and it's spent plenty of time napping on the trail but I've never had anything break. I've laid the KLX down twice off road now and both times stuff broke. The first time the mirror broke off the stem and the bars bent and now this. I love the little KLX but it doesn't seem to crash well.

I'm with you on that. The KLX has been very costly to crash for me too. I haven't even crashed hard yet. Sometimes you don't even need to lay it over to cost you big bucks. The radiator shroud plastic is extremely brittle, sticks way out, and is very expensive to replace. That piece of plastic cost me more than 70$ when a little sapling caught it, no crash. I just spent 84$ to order a new foot peg mount when I hit a rock, no crash just a rock on the side of the trail. Just look at this bike and something breaks. Hopefully I've just had extrememly bad luck and this bleeding will stop. It's taking away from my farkle budget.