Motorcycle Repair: shifting, professional mechanics, honda shadow

Question
howdy chris. i'm having a problem getting my bike to shift. 1984 honda shadow 700. i pulled the motor for repairs. when i got it all put back together i had another problem. the bike was stuck in overdrive. i pulled both covers, pulled the shifting rod out and reinserted it. now the bike will shift between 3 different gears. i don't know what gears they are. but i do know it's not overdrive or neutral. i don't know what i'm doing wrong. any advice you can offer would be greatly appreciated. thank you
gary

Answer
Hi Gary.

Simply put, you have one of three basic problems here.  When you put everything back together, either one or more parts were re-installed in the wrong order, is reversed or something broke after the reassembly.  My money is on the first or second ones.

Installing a part backwards or wrong, particularly in the transmission, is not a hard thing to do.  It even happens to professional mechanics once in a while, so don't feel like you are stupid or anything, because you are, quite clearly, not.

Unfortunately, it means that you will have to break out the repair manual again and pull the engine to repair your repairs.  All of us have had to do something similar at least once.  Make sure that every part is in properly and not damaged.
 Oftentimes the manual has enough detail in the diagrams that, if a part has a particular orientation, then it isn't hard to tell for certain that it is in wrong, in the wrong order or wrong place.  But many times we look at the diagram and say "Okay, this part goes here and this one goes there" and forget that those parts may go in those places, but we don't notice what order and are they turned the right way around.  And that is where even the best mess up sometimes.

Good luck and ride safe.
FALCON