AirCooledSuzuki

Hi, here is one queer fault, my gs750 will select first and drive away , but very hard to select nuetral , when you try to adjust it out using the clutch screw and locknut on the left case, you can get nuetral no problem , but no drive, anyone had this problem , thanks tommy.

well.. this is quite common (surprised nobody has replied yet).. warped clutch plates and/or old oil are the know things to cause neutral being hard to select on older Suzukis.. also sometimes the hub and basket are notched by the tangs of the plates wearing down the grooves, and the more wear the more the plates will tend to stick to these notches and make it harder to really free the clutch up..

so that's 3 things to check..

oh.. the trick to select neutral on the road is engaging it while you're still rolling, so just before you've come to a complete stop..

Hi arnout, thanks for getting back , I had the clutch apart and some of the plates had stuck together , I looked at the tangs on the basket and they look ok, freed the plates and did a oil change as the oil was a bit black, but the symptoms are still there, I will look for some new clutch plates , I measured them with a vernier and they were above the limit , maybe they are warped , very frustrating , again your help is appreciated, now on to ebay for a set of plates, cheers tommy.

taminator wrote:..I will look for some new clutch plates , I measured them with a vernier and they were above the limit , maybe they are warped..

well, don't just take my word for it.. before going out and spending money on new plates better first check whether the old ones are indeed warped.. find a really flat surface (thick glass plate or whatever) and use a thin feeler gauge blade to feel around especially each steel clutch plate to determine the presense of any warp..
any discoloration of the steels would suggest they would've been pretty hot at some point, which might have caused them to warp..

go for a good thrash with the bike and try again. It solves many problems on these old Suzuki's.
Having said that i don't think it's really a problem, many bikes have a difficulty to find neutral when not moving, as has been said before engage neutral before coming to a stop.

If you buy new plates, get OEM Suzuki ones.

Hi the plates I checked for warpage the first time I had them out , there is no sign of heat ie blueing, the are just under maximum wear by a couple of hundreths, I have had gs suzukis over the years 35 actually, the only problem I had was with a 550 gs the clutch was slipping but was cured by a new set of plates, it still selected all the gears, I know that moving back and forward helps selection but this is different, I have to literary bend down and grab the gear lever with the clutch pulled in to get it to move, your boot cant move it , ita good tug to force it into a gear, even then you somtimes go straight past nuetral, its getting to the stage of swapping engines, as this seems easier, I have access to a 750 motor that has the head removed, my bike smokes a wee bit on start up, so just going to remove it and fire the other motor in , was told it was running fine before removal, the head was removed to check the valve seats, so a new gasket set and time it up , will keep the old motor as a spare,

If you rule out the clutch and its that hard to select even when the bike is rolling then it may be a bent selector fork or it may be a notch worn in the selector drum or the fork is worn where it engages with the drum slot?

Hi colin, thats the conclusion I had come to , got a mate with a gs750 motor , will pick it up on sunday, needs the head put back on, but it was running ok before that, will check the guides and seats, before rebuild , had enough pissing about with clutch and ajusters , so will just swap engine out, cheers tommy. Hows the turbo coming along.

taminator wrote:..I have to literary bend down and grab the gear lever with the clutch pulled in to get it to move, your boot cant move it , ita good tug to force it into a gear..

you didn't think this would've been relevant information when you started this topic?

Sorry arnout , the gearchange has gradually got worse, you could dial it out with ajustment , but as i said no drive , or drive but a pig to get nuetral, l bought the bike and it drove me home 8 miles, but in my driveway selecting nuetral was a nightmare, I havent evev been out on it since. Cheers tommy.