Stuck in neutral - lost all gears
 

Hello there!

This is probably not the best way to introduce myself to this forum, but it certainly is a notorious one :).

First off, nice to meet everyone, the name is Fabio, and I have just purchased a used '09 KLX250S. It came with 1100 miles, a Two Brothers M7, what looks to be a Ricochet skid plate, DynoJet rejetted carb, and a more open air box (not sure of actual mod yet).

According to the previous owner it had only been ridden off road once, and it certainly looked that way, showroom condition, no scratches or scrapes anywhere, literally. I had a 15 page inspection checklist I ran before I bought it (I am pretty anal), and I test rode it for about 30 minutes.

So, bought the bike, rode it home, then went on a 100 mile ride on paved roads, everything was feeling good. Yesterday I took it to Perry State Forrest, a notorious place for good trails around Eastern Ohio. Ran the bike for three hours hard, but no crashes. I was very happy with the performance. Took a break, and went back for a second go. 15 minutes after getting started, the bike went from second to neutral on its own.

I stopped and signaled (horn) for the other two guys riding with me that I had a problem. We were not able to get any gears, so we ended up pushing the bike out of the trail. We pushed for probably 20 minutes, but it felt like an hour considering it was 92 degrees.

I am planning on opening the crankcase myself and trying to fix whatever it is that is broken, as I love getting into stuff like that. So here are the symptoms, in case anyone here can help me determine what it is that might be broken:

The shifter pedal will move both up and down, and the centering spring will bring it back to center, but it doesn't feel connected to anything inside the transmission, it just feels like it doesn't touch anything. The bike indicates neutral through the green panel light, and feels neutral by pushing it around without having to activate the clutch.

The wife is going out of town for a week starting next Friday, a week from today, and she's taking the daughter, so that sounds like a perfect time to work on this. Until then I plan on doing my research, studying the service manual, and buying whatever tools I am going to need.

So, nice to meet you all, glad to be a part of this community as the bike really behaved great on the trails, keeping up with a WR250R and a WR450F without breaking a sweat (the bike, that is, I was pouring wet!). Looking forward to contributing what I can, starting with a bunch of pictures of this case opening I plan on doing. No worries, for those of you wondering, I'll document every single step, as I am a big fan of those who've done it.

Your name is Fabio and you say you're pretty anal? Wow! We could really rip on ya right off the start. :D:D:D Of course I'm just messing with ya, welcome to the forums, I have never heard of one of these bikes doing what you described. Mine is an 06 with nearly 14,000 miles on it and its been flawless. I hope someone on here comes up with an answer soon. Keep us posted, and again, glad to have you aboard. :)

Maybe something in this earlier thread will be of some use:

https://www.kawasakiforums.com/forum...ad.php?t=32995

Ride on
Brewster

Painted myself in a corner on that one, didn't I? LOL

Thanks deej, good to be here!

Absolutely will! I found it strange too, but I know this bike is pretty damn reliable, so I am not worried, stuff happens, parts have tolerances, and once in a while one of them has a defect. That's one of the reasons we have awesome machines for relatively little money ;).

See you around,

Thanks Brewster, good link. I have seen that before, and will let you know if the problem I have had any similarity.

I was driving my 2010 KLX250s and I had the exact same problem. Could you tell me what was wrong with yours? I would like to know before i pull my bike apart

Hi Rogers,

It was the shifting star. This is a part that (wouldn't you know) looks like a star, and on each point has a little shaft protruding from it. The shifting fork (this may be a bad name for this part, as the actual shifting forks are inside the transmission, connected to the shifting drum, but this part looks like a fork, and is the arm that connects the shifting pedal to the shifting star) uses these little shafts to turn this shifting star, which then turns the shifting drum.

So, long story short, one of these shafts broke, and so the shifting fork couldn't rotate the shifting star anymore. It just so happened that the one that broke was the one for neutral, it could have been any other, and then the bike would have been stuck at that gear.

I bough my part at CheapCycleParts, and it was about $20. There is a side cover that you can see around the shift pedal area, this is the only cover you need to remove to change this part, which is handy. You'll have to drain all the oil from the motor before you open this cover, though, fair warning :).

If your problem ends up being the same, here's a link to see what the part looks like and order it. It's part 13145 (it's under the "Transmission" tab if the link above didn't take you right to it), $26, and looks like they have it ready for shipping.

Good luck!

Another case of the ****ty '09 shift star design. I think that Kawi should do a recall on this one. At the very least, if mine hadn't already broken and been replaced with the good (stronger) design, I'd probably replace mine preempitively.

Hey, miguez, was your new part like the '06/'07 design, or exactly like the broken '09 part?

Here's a link: https://www.kawasakiforums.com/forum...-change-35512/

Thanks miguez I took your advice and started to take that case off. This might sound like I'm mechanically challenged. I took the sprocket and all the bolts off, except one. The last thing to get the case off was the 3/8 nut on the bottom right had corner. i cannot get a socket on it and a wrench will just strip it because i cannot get the wrench on their far enough. I was just wondering how everybody else got it off?

I think I just used a 1/4" drive, 6 point, deep well socket with an appropriate extension. It wasn't perfectly in-line due to frame tube interference - in which case you'll really want a 6 point socket rather than a 12 point. If you're using a 3/8" drive, I don't think it will work - there'll be too much interference with the frame tube.

Oh, and it's not a 3/8" nut...it's metric. I can't remember if this nut is an 8mm, 9mm, or 10mm. Everything is metric on this bike - if you don't have metric tools, stop and get some, or you'll inevitably end up rounding off some nuts or bolts.

Good luck.