no fifth sixth gear
 

I did a classic low side on the left side of the bike on Monday and now I have no fifth or sixth gear. They shift lever moves up and is not hitting the case. It doesn't feel like it's catching the shift drum pins when trying to shift into gears 5 or 6 and the lever seems to move further when I try to get those two gears. I have 1-4 gears. I'm hoping it's something in the external shift mechanism and not bent shift forks, cause I really don't feel like spliting the cases. Anybody seen this before? Brewster hopefully you read this and have an idea. Maybe that little spring on the lever popped off ? I'll look into the shift mechanism sometime this week but it would be nice to know if anyone has seen this before and has some input.

When you say no fifth or sixth gear, do you mean it acts like it's in neutral or just stays in 4th gear?

Lay the bike on its side and take the cover off that is over the shift star gear. Try going through the gears and watch the shift star to see if it is indexing through the gears. If it does, you have internal problems. If not, it could be internal or external to the gears. You may have to wiggle the rear wheel a bit to help it out.
I can't tell from the transmission parts photos if only one of the shift forks would be involved in just the 5-6 gears.

Good luck and let us know what you find.

Ride on
Brewster

It stays in fourth when you try to shift into fifth or sixth. I'll try to pull the external shift mechanism off tonight and try to roll the shift drum through all the gears. Maybe I'll get lucky and it will be in the shift mechanism and not inside the tranny. And it think from what the manual says that there is a shift fork for both fifth and sixth gear. Thanks.

it might be the shift star. the "redesigned" the 09 star and i had one fail (broke the 2nd point of the star off). i could try to shift up but it was like there was nothing in there. had to ride home in first, i could have riden a bicycle faster between the 110/80 tire and 13 tooth sprocket. if i remember correctly, i think a old lady walking her dog passed me and asked if i needed help :p.

I finally got a chance to remove the external shift mechanism cover this weekend and one of the pins/pegs on the shift drum cam (star) was broke off. Thank goodness the broke off pin was laying down there below the gear selection lever (spring loaded indexing lever) and didn't find it's way into the transmission. Good call punkenduro09. I was hoping that the problem would be in the shift mechanism and not the transmission. Funny that they cast those pins right on the cam itself, as I recall most bikes I've worked on in the past had holes drilled into the shift drum and then hardened pins go in the holes then the pins are held in place by the circular cover plate.

I haven't been into the tranny on a KLX, but I wonder if the pins on the shift drum are designed to be the weak link by intent in this case. Is this a better failure when considering cost and/or potential damage to the shift forks or even the gears themselves? In your crash, perhaps an impact like that allows the pins to be the sacrificial element in the chain of events rather than a more catastrophic failure...kind of like a shear pin. I'm just speculating from looking at an exploded view of these components.

TNC could be. I'd definately rather replace the shift drum cam than have to split the cases and replace a shift fork. My guess is that if there was any design intent I'd say it was to lower costs, but maybe they did design it to be the weak link who knows. Fortuneately it was only $26.00. Nine bucks for the stinking gasket though. Hopefully it will be here Friday so I can go riding this coming weekend.

Me too - no 5th and 6th
 

Damn, I think my shift mechanism just failed too. The bike seems fine in 1-N-2-3-4, but go for 5th and nada. There's no interference with shift lever, just free upward motion without an upshift to 5th.

I'd been itching to ride for a couple months, and we happened to have some nice weather today: sunny and around 20 degrees F. ;) Long story short, I was about 20 miles out riding dirt roads (some bare, some ice covered) and decided to take a spin on a lake, which resulted in a semi-low speed lowside on the left side (dam hidden ice-ruts and un-studded tires). I think I was in 4th at the time of the crash.

At first the only damage I noticed was a slightly bent shift lever and an aching right thumb (an old injury that takes almost nothing to aggravate), along with the requisite bruised ego. However, when I did get back to less ice covered road, I quickly noticed that I could not upshift beyond 4th. That was a long 20 mile ride home with an unknown bike problem, the sun starting to set, and the temperature starting to drop.

From reading here, I know it's likely the shift star, and it's a relatively inexpensive repair, but I may try to have the dealer cover it under warranty, since I've had the bike less than a year. In any case, I hope the motor didn't ingest the broken parts.

Finally got time to pull the cover last night...and there was the pin broken off of the shift star sitting right in the wide open behind the cover. Man was I pleased that the transmission had not eaten that piece!

I ordered new parts, hopefully I'll have my bike rideable again by the weekend. None too soon, since the weather is finally getting bearable here for regular riding.

I have had the shift drum pins break twice, both while in first or second. So I had no gear selection at all. Fortunately, was close to camp and could truck the bike back to civilization. Since then have been real nervous about left side falls. That weak link "shear pin" break could cause a long walk home. Wish those pins were a bit stronger and I fell less often.