Motorcycle transmission questions - 1 down 4 up?
 

My dad left a '69 Honda CB350 with <2500 miles on it in a storage locker when he died. and it's found a home in my garage. Officially I have no interest in riding it (am not a motorcycle guy in case the wife is reading) but the more I tinker with it to get it running the more I'm thinking about riding it. Obviously the safe thing to do should I decide to ride it is to go take the MSF beginner course and get all geared up. I think I'm most likely to get a couple friends who ride to test it out for me. But I digress:

I understand that the bike has a sequential transmission but am puzzled by the shift order. From neutral, it appears 1 is "down" and 2,3,4,5 are "up". The sequential shift stack is 1-N-2-3-4-5. Does anybody understand the rational behind that?

Pretty much every bike is like this.

Newer auto clutch bikes are all up whereas older ones were all down.

Also a cb 350 is a really cool bike. My brother had a 70 450.

You have it right on the shift sequence. Neutral is sort of a 1/2 click up from 1st or down from 2nd. It can be elusive to find at times. But I don't ever notice skipping over it from 1 to 2 unless I somehow goof up and find neutral by mistake.

I have found great joy in wrenching on bikes in the last few years. I like how you can see everything as well as the simplicity. I ride a dirtbike but have a neighbor/friend who is a street rider. I am not really qualified to offer opinions on street bikes. I think there is a high probability that if you bring it over we can have neighbor/friend test it out at a local school parking lot. Shoot me a PM if you are interested.

Also, I wouldn't learn to ride on a bike that is prized or sentimental. I would learn on something slow, ugly, and forgiving. You can buy a solid TW200 for under $3000. Take the course. Gain some skills. Sell it for what you paid 6 months later.

Along the same subject....

On an episode of ItchyBoots, she was pointing out some different bikes and she showed one with a left handlebar lever that she said was a quick shifter.

She didn't explain it.....How does that work?

Speaking from (long ago) experience, I can say the shift mechanism on a Honda 350 of that vintage is very intuitive. Tapping your way through the gears, up for a higher one, down for a lower one. From 1st to 2nd if all is functioning properly you won't hit neutral by mistake. At rest a gentle nudge from 1st should reward you with the blue light in the cluster.
Mine was a 350 CL which meant a huge rear sprocket on the rear wheel and high mounted "scrambler " pipes. Supposedly it was a dual purpose machine. In reality it meant you could climb almost any hill two up without down shifting but you were turning 1000 rpm for every 10 mph.

Best
Les

Broad stroke explanation is that a quick shifter is an electronic device that lets you shift without the clutch or rolling off of the throttle.

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Unless it is an early Norton, then it's 1 up 3 down and on the right side!;)

Thanks...the video explains it well. I think it would be fun.
It's almost like my Civic's rev-matching feature.



.

I guess my question is "Why put Neutral between 1 and 2?"

I guess it makes sense that to find 1 you just click down until you can't. LWJ's explanation that N is something like a 1/2-click from 1 makes sense (full click bypasses N and goes straight to 2). I've yet to actually try shifting it when running (and don't have a battery yet - hopefully will get it to idle after Thanksgiving).

The reason it’s between 1st and 2nd is so that you never accidentally put it into neutral by shifting down.

This mistake could be treacherous on a dirt bike. Perhaps less so in a street bike.

You can always find 1st by shifting down and it’s intuitive to get to the rest of the gears from there. It’s not like a gear shift where you can tell where you are by looking at the shift lever.

I think flatbutt has it right re quickshifter in this particular case.

But, you may be interested to learn that vintage Vespa have left handlebar shifting. So you clutch with your hand on the left lever (just like on most motorcycles) and twist the grip back or forward to select gears. This leaves your left foot "free" whereas braking is set up in the traditional way (right foot and right hand).
https://pm1.aminoapps.com/6423/2f815...b9d46f4_hq.jpg

I reworked the ratchet shifter on my 52 Harley panhead chopper. I did 1 up to first than Neutral 2-3-4- down. It was fun to bang thru the gears quick and than lifting up to engine brake.
Oh was also a way to keep unauthorized use, always messed others up.

And than onto my 54 Harley KH with a right side shifter and left foot brake. And my 55 Harley Trike with left hand tank shifter 1st forward Neutral than 2 - 3 - Reverse.

Or try and borrow my brother in laws Indians with left hand throttle.

I still have the 54KH the others re-homed.

Sawyer

^^^ That could be confusing to own and drive all those combinations.

Any bike I ever owned was 1 down 4 up.....except for my first bike, a Honda 90 step-thru. (maybe it was a Honda 50?...too long ago)

Prior to riding your CB350 or letting anybody else ride it how old are the tires? If it has been sitting for a while they are probably hard as a golf ball. Nice classic bike.

The reverse pattern of first being up is known as GP shifting, pretty normal for race use, easy to shift up while bike is leaned over, shifting down done prior to turn. My KTM can be configured both ways but it would just mess me up when switching bikes.

A great bike. Well worth the effort of new tires and a riding course.

Same as your Porsche, change the oil regularly and don't thrash it when it's cold, and it will last forever.

Three out of my four bikes are left hand shift. One down five up on two of them, one down four up on the other. The odd man out is my '76 Sportster. It should be a left hand shift, since Federal law mandated that starting in 1975. It was when I bought it in 1980, but I soon converted it to right hand shift. Harley's "solution" to meeting that new Federal mandate was somewhat less than satisfactory for the first two years but, thankfully, it was quite easy to switch it over to the right side.

A lot of folks ask me how I manage to ride both configurations without screwing it all up and hitting the shifter when I want the brake. It's funny, though, I have never had a problem. I don't even really think about it. I must just flip some subconscious switch when I hop on the old Sporty.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1732575485.jpg

^^^Temporary sidenote. I am really not a fan of HD bikes. Don't get me started. Except. Higgins' old Sportster is pure fricken porn. Damn. That is a great looking motorcycle.

Back to the regular channel.

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:)

Thank you, that is very kind of you. It's been a life-long love affair, that's for sure, having bought it when I was 19 years old (I'm 64 now). Many bikes have come and gone over the years, but this one has been "the keeper". Just something about it.

There is really only one downside, and it relates to the context of this thread. Pretty much no one I ride with regularly can ride it. None of them ride anything with a right hand shift. They are as concerned as I am that they will absentmindedly stomp on that shifter when looking for the rear brake. That could be bad... Which is a shame, since like many groups of riding buddies, we sometimes like to swap bikes for a bit.

So, yeah, that Federal mandate wasn't all bad. Imagine getting into a car that has the brake pedal on the left and the clutch in the middle. That was all standardized long before motorcycles were.

I was going to ask who uses the rear brake then realized it was a Harley. :)

My bikes were a mix of regular and GP shift and moving from bike to bike wasn't bad at all. I'd find first after getting on the bike and just go from there.

My bikes were Japanese 1 down, 4 or 5 up. I also regularly road my neighbors Triumph X-75 Hurricane, which was 1 down 3 up, but on the right side. This occasionally led to a downshift when I would go for the brake pedal.
This is now a bit more confusing, as the '72 Kawasaki H2 I picked up a couple years ago is different from my Honda, Suzuki, and Yamaha's. It's the first one where neutral is down, not between 1st and 2nd. I guess you could accidentally hit neutral when down shifting, but haven't done it yet.

Heh heh... Yup, that is the reputation, isn't it? Notice, however, the front disc on that old bike. Without it, I probably would have died a long time ago (like sometime in 1980). The rear brake is, you see purely decorative. Almost completely nonfunctional. Only there to meet a legal requirement. It's a mechanical drum, who's shoes are perhaps an inch and a half wide. Who on earth ever thought that thing would be useful on anything bigger and faster than a baby stroller was delusional, or optimistic, or something...

Heck the rear brake on my first Ducati was as useful as a seatbelt on a bomb. It was OK for hill hold but forget about stretching the suspension or scrubbing speed into a corner.

Higgins,
I get the nobody can ride it thing! I have a friend with a 1950 Indian. We look back and forth and nobody wants to attempt to ride the damn thing!

Also, I did a quick search shopping for old Sporto's. You bike is that awesome!

Yeah, boy, that is another level entirely. Foot clutch, tank shift - but different than on a Harley. On a Harley, it's "toe to go" - push down on the front pedal on the rocker assembly to engage the clutch. On an Indian, you push down on the back pedal. That, and some Indians had the throttle on the left grip.

Hoo boy, there's an endeavor fraught with peril. The most unloved Harley of all time, and the most abused. Financially accessible to the lowest rung on the Harley enthusiast ladder, some real cave men who find amazingly "creative" solutions to their problems. Not that there aren't good ones out there, and they have not yet come up on the "collectors'" RADAR, so they are much more affordable than other classics with which they competed of similar vintage, like the Bonnevilles, Commandos, Gold Stars, etc.

Speaking of which, I used to ride quite a bit with a local vintage enthusiasts' club. Not "Harley guys" by any stretch, most rode old British "sporting" bikes of about the same vintage as my Sporty. None of them ever had a kind word for Harleys, but most of their ribbing was directed at the "Big Twins" - Panheads, Shovelheads, and maybe Knuckleheads. Us Ironhead Sportster guys had a saying, though - "I never wanted a Harley, but I always wanted a Sportster". Different machine entirely.

Different enough, actually, that my smart ass (and I mean that in the best spirit) British bike mounted antagonists had absolutely nothing for my Sportster. A well sorted, slightly hopped-up Ironhead like mine will absolutely run away and hide from the best the Brits ever had on offer. The disc brake on the front certainly helped, but many of their later bikes had them as well. It was simply no contest in a straight line, not even close.

In really tight twisties, things got a little more even, but all of the bikes from that era were cursed with "flexi-flyer" frames and noodly front forks. None of them were great, and the Sportster could at least hold its own with their best. Kind of a dead heat. But, well, once it was time to get on the throttle, they had no hope. Different league altogether.

It's great to see one in good running shape. Years ago, I had an Ironhead Sportster project bike that was basically a frame and boxes of parts. Unfortunately it never got past that stage.