I have had two Yamaha ventures, combined mileage over 200,000, over 18 years, one BMW K 1200 LT, I won’t go into it but I will never buy another BMW. And I just bought my first GL 1800 Goldwing. I read the owners manual cover to cover, slowly, because I was in a hurry to absorb all the information that was different from anything else I have owned.. I learned one thing that many gold wing owners seem to ignore. The manual specifically states, do not use a heel toe shifter on the gold wing... I am betting that the factory knows more about that subject than the people that make he’ll toe shifters in the aftermarket for the gold wing. my Goldwing had some aftermarket accessories. One of them was the heel toe shifter/floorboards. I am not a fan of floorboards, I removed the floorboards and put the stock foot pegs back on as soon as I got the machine home. Luckily, The machine only had 13,000 miles on it when I bought it, so the heel toe shifter was probably not on there long enough to do any real damage.. when I bought my machine, it is a 2002, I bought it in 2019 from the original owner. He was honest and told me that he never did things like change the clutch or brake fluid, he never changed the air cleaner, the machine still had the original 18 year old tires on it. So I spent weeks doing maintenance chores.. changing the brake fluid, and the clutch fluid, when I used my vacuum bleeder on the clutch to change the fluid, that brake fluid looked like melted chocolate ice cream. I’m surprised the seal didn’t fail. The air cleaner had a mouse bed in it. The fork oil was never changed. While I was at it, I replaced the fork seals and wipers and fork fluid and upgraded the fork springs. I also upgraded the rear shock spring to match The fork springs. They were 18 years old, and what a difference it made. It transformed the motorcycle. Anyway, while I was doing all of these maintenance chores, I was looking for the fuel filter. I went through my phone book sized factory Honda service manual, I could not find anything on the subject of fuel filter or fuel filter location, in the maintenance schedule, they don’t mention the intervals to change the fuel filter. I couldn’t find one on the Internet for sale listed. it turns out that the GL 1800 from the factory does not come with a fuel filter.. that sounds crazy, but there is no replaceable fuel filter. Maybe the in the tank fuel pump has a very fine screen over the in the tank fuel pump pick up.. my experience as a motorcycle mechanic in four different shops with transmissions is, if you miss a shift, do not jam the bike into another gear until the RPMs drop, and always shift up. Take your foot off of the shifter when you are done with every shift to allow the shift PAWL to re-center around the shift drum shift pins. Never rest your foot on the shifter. You will burn the shift forks and the channel on the gears that move when the shift forks apply pressure. always always always use motorcycle specific oil recommended by the manufacturer. You cannot use car oil in motorcycle engines ever again. The reason is in 1988 or 89, the federal government asked car manufacturers and oil companies how they could work together to get more miles per gallon out of a gallon of gasoline. The result was a huge change in oil’s that we use in our cars. to cut to the chase, they have removed most of the zinc and phosphorus from the additives package of oil to make it thinner, less resistance to flow, the engine doesn’t work as hard, even if every car on the road using these new thinner oils gets 1/10 of a mile further per tank full of gas, that will save millions of gallons of gasoline per month. here’s the problem with modern oil’s made for cars, I repeat made four cars. remember I said they removed zinc and phosphorus almost completely from the additives package that they add to oil.. well, zinc and phosphorus are the exact two additives that give oil something called higher film strength. As gears in the transmission mesh on a motorcycle, which uses the same oil to lubricate the crankshaft and the cylinders, in the transmission, as those gears mesh,, those gears and that oil is subjected to a condition called “Shear”.. sheer, actually slices the molecules in the oil, and it keeps chopping them every time that oil gets squashed between the gears as they mesh under pressure. You can tell when your oil is worn out on your motorcycle when it becomes difficult to find neutral, and when it becomes difficult to shift. I have experienced this myself, some motorcycles you can feel it sooner than later. motorcycle specific oil has the required amount of zinc and phosphorus in the additives package to withstand sheer. there is not a more severe environment on oil than in a transmission. In car and truck transmissions, they use a heavier oil, sometimes it’s called gear lube to withstand the enormous forces on the gears faces and on the oil... baby your transmissions, don’t attack your shifter when shifting or when trying to find neutral. Never tried to find neutral when your engine is not running unless you’re rocking the motorcycle back-and-forth gently. I have seen people attack the shifters with the heel and all their weight of their leg like they were kicked starting it. That makes me cringe when I see that. baby that shift to second gear on all motorcycles, don’t Revit up high in first gear and then slam it into second. There’s just so much torque on the entire drive train, and when you shift from 1st to 2nd, all that inertia and momentum making those gears stop dead over and over and over, has a cumulative affect on the shift dogs. once your bike starts jumping out of gear on acceleration, or missing shifts, be prepared for an expensive repair job. As a matter of fact, it is so expensive, it would be cheaper to buy an engine complete out of a salvage yard then to pay someone to rebuild the transmission in a motorcycle like a gold wing. It’s one of those jobs, that, while you are in there, you might as well do this and then you might as well do that, and the next thing you know, you spent thousands. If you blow the transmission on a GL 1800, do a Google search and find a salvage yard, and buy an engine out of a low mileage wreck.. it’s cheaper and quicker. A friend of mine broke the timing chain and his venture engine. This was 20 years ago, he got an entire engine from a local salvage yard for $400. That is less than he would’ve paid for the timing chain, timing chain tensioner’s, engine gasket kit, and all those little extras..
I have the '07 Goldwing only 14k miles and these bikes shift very loudly clunky I wish they were quieter shifting. I'm wondering if there is a specific oil that might quite things down a bit..
thats what a heel toe shifter does to a transmission every time ,, riders rest thier foot on like it is a foot peg and destroy the transmission every time
Honda says specifically in the owners manual for the Goldwing, not to put floorboards on the GL 1800. Because probably because it requires a different kind of a shifter also. Here is the reason to never put floorboards and the non-standard shifter addition required because you’re using floorboards.. if you have a transmission failure, even if your machine is under warranty, Honda will reject that warranty claim because they spell it out in plain language in the owners manual, not to use floorboards on that machine.. A heel toe shifter is not the reason transmissions fail. I had a GL 1800 Goldwing for two years, I won’t go into why I didn’t like it. But I will say, I went back to a Yamaha royal star Venture from the goldwing buyer??, my current royal star venture is my third Venture since 1986.. my royal star venture came from the factory with floorboards and a heel toe shifter. The heel toe shifter is not attached directly to the shift shaft. It is attached through linkage with Heim joints… The heel toe shifter rocks on a pivot bearing. The effort, the force of every shift does not go on to the shift shaft of the Yamaha set up.. I do not “ attack “my shifter on any of my motorcycles because I used to be a mechanic at several different motorcycle shops. I see how people attack their shifters, they act like it’s a Kickstarter lever or a foot peg sometimes. I see them slamming the whole weight of their leg onto the shifter to try to find neutral. I see them riding with their foot resting on the shifter… if those people only knew what they were doing when they rest their foot on the shifter or attack the shifter with a lot of effort or rest their leg on it. They should run their oil over a magnet and watch how much metal comes out with the oil when they change it. I’m sure their shift forks are burnt if not bent also.. A transmission failure is pretty final. When the transmission locks up, pulling the clutch in does not save you. The clutch is before the transmission, so when the transmission locks, the rear wheel is locked until the bike stops. Experienced it myself. I was commuting to work on my Yamaha RZ 350 2 stroke twin..It was my fault, I thought that the engines of the RZ was the same as the RD engine. I am very very familiar with the RD engine because I road race one for eight years, winning six road racing championships, to time national champion.. so when I got the RZ, I changed the transmission oil, but I only put 1.1 quarts of oil in the gearbox. The transmission holds 2 quarts of oil. I did not know that. I rode the bike for several weeks low on oil. On my way to work one morning the transmission locked. I was going uphill. I dragged the Perelli phantom rear tire which was only about 400 miles old down to the cords.. I pulled the clutch in but like I said, the clutched only disengage is the transmission from the crankshaft, it does not disengage the locked transmission from the rear wheel. So I was at the mercy of my skill/reactions. My bike was fishtailing uphill, and the skidmarks were about 150 feet long. I was doing about 60 miles an hour when the transmission locked.. I did not crash but I don’t know how I was that lucky because of the way the bike was fishtailing.. when I split the cases to repair the transmission. I discovered that one of the gears seized on the shaft. I had six broken gears that had teeth broken right off of the gears, and a seized main shaft. I worked part time at a Yamaha shop at that time evenings and Saturdays so I was able to get parts at cost. There was one gear in there that dealer cost was $270…It was one of the gears that the shift fork would slide left to right ..Rebuilding the entire transmission cost me nearly $600 just in parts. I did all the work. But after that close call, even though I had replaced everything that was broken in the transmission, I sold the machine. I just did not trust it anymore after that.. baby you are transmissions. Never take first gear RPMs up real high and then shift to second. That is one hell of a collision that goes on inside a transmission shifting from 1st to 2nd. Second gear is the one that is going to fail in your transmission if you are going to have a failure. That is very very common to have second gear go out on you. It’s best to just get moving in first gear, then shift to second around 15 miles an Hour.. when you shift, shift as quickly as possible. Not as hard as possible, just quickly because the transmission will be happier if you shift quickly. Formula One car transmissions are also sequential transmissions, much like motorcycle transmissions. Those transmissions shift in one 2000s of a second..Of course they use paddle shifts in formula one. There’s another thing many people do not realize, you really don’t need to use the clutch if you are good at matching the transmission speeds. When I roadraced motorcycles.. The clutch was really only necessary for the start, after the start of the race, I rarely used the clutch.. The same crashing goes on inside a motorcycle transmission whether you use the clutch or not. It’s just that you need to be precise on letting off the throttle at the right time and then shift while there is no deceleration load or acceleration load on the transmission at that instant. Transmissions go through hell. They are often referred to as “crash boxes” if you look at the gears in the video. You will see blocks of metal on the sides of some of the gears. Those are called dogs. When you shift, those blocks on the sides of those gears, go into holes/ slots on the gear next to those blocks. That is all a transmission shifts. The shift fork slides the gear with the dogs on it to the side and those dogs go into holes on the gear beside it. Those teeth around the outside of every gear or always always constantly matched with the gear it is opposite. That’s why they are called constant mesh sequential transmissions. Constant mesh means those gears are always messed with the gear they are facing, sequential means you have to go from first gear, up through neutral, to second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and when you want to dance if you have to go 6th to 5th to 4th 3rd to second to neutral to first. That is the sequence, that’s why they are called sequential..Formula One car transmissions are also sequential constant mesh. That’s why when they spin off and go into the grass, you’ll see them sitting there and you wonder why they don’t get going again, it’s because they are trying to get from sixth gear or fourth gear into first gear by going through the sequence
Who are you and how can i get in touch? I have 148k on my f6b. 2nd gear went out a week after a i bought the bike at 41k. Skipped second for 100k miles. Now third is kicking out. Such junk. I tried to bring it back to the dealer (Barneys in Florida) a week and a half later after I bought it and they would not take it back. It's my 24th bike since the early 70s, never missed a gear, so you guys that says its bad shifting can stop before u start.
can you tell me what gears those are as far as 1 thru 5 on the shift pattern and is there a transmission diagram of the shift pattern showing the gears engaging as it shifts
May I ask would you have a idea on on something is going on with my 2008 goldwing I just started to have a slit problem downshifting from 5th gear it feels stiff .May I ask what could that be I need to bleed clutch this I'm aware of and also I plan on changing slave cylinder.??
Bass Player you’re 100% correct on that heal toe shifter they are a guaranteed problem. When I was looking for a used bike anytime I saw one of those shifters I was done looking at that bike immediately.
![ถ้าพี่วุ้นท้อง แป้งจะท้องไปด้วยกัน !!!! [ดูคลิปเต็มหน้าช่อง] #Short | PANG ORNHIRA](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/FeyEnVMwitA/mqdefault.jpg)
I have had two Yamaha ventures, combined mileage over 200,000, over 18 years, one BMW K 1200 LT, I won’t go into it but I will never buy another BMW. And I just bought my first GL 1800 Goldwing.
I read the owners manual cover to cover, slowly, because I was in a hurry to absorb all the information that was different from anything else I have owned..
I learned one thing that many gold wing owners seem to ignore. The manual specifically states, do not use a heel toe shifter on the gold wing...
I am betting that the factory knows more about that subject than the people that make he’ll toe shifters in the aftermarket for the gold wing.
my Goldwing had some aftermarket accessories. One of them was the heel toe shifter/floorboards. I am not a fan of floorboards, I removed the floorboards and put the stock foot pegs back on as soon as I got the machine home. Luckily, The machine only had 13,000 miles on it when I bought it, so the heel toe shifter was probably not on there long enough to do any real damage..
when I bought my machine, it is a 2002, I bought it in 2019 from the original owner. He was honest and told me that he never did things like change the clutch or brake fluid, he never changed the air cleaner, the machine still had the original 18 year old tires on it. So I spent weeks doing maintenance chores.. changing the brake fluid, and the clutch fluid, when I used my vacuum bleeder on the clutch to change the fluid, that brake fluid looked like melted chocolate ice cream. I’m surprised the seal didn’t fail.
The air cleaner had a mouse bed in it. The fork oil was never changed. While I was at it, I replaced the fork seals and wipers and fork fluid and upgraded the fork springs. I also upgraded the rear shock spring to match The fork springs. They were 18 years old, and what a difference it made. It transformed the motorcycle.
Anyway, while I was doing all of these maintenance chores, I was looking for the fuel filter. I went through my phone book sized factory Honda service manual, I could not find anything on the subject of fuel filter or fuel filter location, in the maintenance schedule, they don’t mention the intervals to change the fuel filter. I couldn’t find one on the Internet for sale listed.
it turns out that the GL 1800 from the factory does not come with a fuel filter.. that sounds crazy, but there is no replaceable fuel filter. Maybe the in the tank fuel pump has a very fine screen over the in the tank fuel pump pick up..
my experience as a motorcycle mechanic in four different shops with transmissions is, if you miss a shift, do not jam the bike into another gear until the RPMs drop, and always shift up. Take your foot off of the shifter when you are done with every shift to allow the shift PAWL to re-center around the shift drum shift pins. Never rest your foot on the shifter. You will burn the shift forks and the channel on the gears that move when the shift forks apply pressure.
always always always use motorcycle specific oil recommended by the manufacturer. You cannot use car oil in motorcycle engines ever again. The reason is
in 1988 or 89, the federal government asked car manufacturers and oil companies how they could work together to get more miles per gallon out of a gallon of gasoline. The result was a huge change in oil’s that we use in our cars.
to cut to the chase, they have removed most of the zinc and phosphorus from the additives package of oil to make it thinner, less resistance to flow, the engine doesn’t work as hard, even if every car on the road using these new thinner oils gets 1/10 of a mile further per tank full of gas, that will save millions of gallons of gasoline per month.
here’s the problem with modern oil’s made for cars, I repeat made four cars.
remember I said they removed zinc and phosphorus almost completely from the additives package that they add to oil.. well, zinc and phosphorus are the exact two additives that give oil something called higher film strength. As gears in the transmission mesh on a motorcycle, which uses the same oil to lubricate the crankshaft and the cylinders, in the transmission, as those gears mesh,, those gears and that oil is subjected to a condition called “Shear”..
sheer, actually slices the molecules in the oil, and it keeps chopping them every time that oil gets squashed between the gears as they mesh under pressure. You can tell when your oil is worn out on your motorcycle when it becomes difficult to find neutral, and when it becomes difficult to shift. I have experienced this myself, some motorcycles you can feel it sooner than later.
motorcycle specific oil has the required amount of zinc and phosphorus in the additives package to withstand sheer. there is not a more severe environment on oil than in a transmission. In car and truck transmissions, they use a heavier oil, sometimes it’s called gear lube to withstand the enormous forces on the gears faces and on the oil...
baby your transmissions, don’t attack your shifter when shifting or when trying to find neutral. Never tried to find neutral when your engine is not running unless you’re rocking the motorcycle back-and-forth gently. I have seen people attack the shifters with the heel and all their weight of their leg like they were kicked starting it. That makes me cringe when I see that.
baby that shift to second gear on all motorcycles, don’t Revit up high in first gear and then slam it into second. There’s just so much torque on the entire drive train, and when you shift from 1st to 2nd, all that inertia and momentum making those gears stop dead over and over and over, has a cumulative affect on the shift dogs. once your bike starts jumping out of gear on acceleration, or missing shifts, be prepared for an expensive repair job. As a matter of fact, it is so expensive, it would be cheaper to buy an engine complete out of a salvage yard then to pay someone to rebuild the transmission in a motorcycle like a gold wing. It’s one of those jobs, that, while you are in there, you might as well do this and then you might as well do that, and the next thing you know, you spent thousands. If you blow the transmission on a GL 1800, do a Google search and find a salvage yard, and buy an engine out of a low mileage wreck.. it’s cheaper and quicker. A friend of mine broke the timing chain and his venture engine. This was 20 years ago, he got an entire engine from a local salvage yard for $400. That is less than he would’ve paid for the timing chain, timing chain tensioner’s, engine gasket kit, and all those little extras..
I stopped ready an hour into your story, but im dying to kno. What was the moral? Have u told Honda to take a hike yet? You will.
I have the '07 Goldwing only 14k miles and these bikes shift very loudly clunky I wish they were quieter shifting. I'm wondering if there is a specific oil that might quite things down a bit..
thats what a heel toe shifter does to a transmission every time ,, riders rest thier foot on like it is a foot peg and destroy the transmission every time
Dogleg Jake, you are correct.Actually it says right in the owners manual not to use or install a heel toe shifter on a GL 1800 Goldwing
That happened to me and I learn the hard way that the heel and toe shifter was not a good idea.
Honda says specifically in the owners manual for the Goldwing, not to put floorboards on the GL 1800. Because probably because it requires a different kind of a shifter also. Here is the reason to never put floorboards and the non-standard shifter addition required because you’re using floorboards..
if you have a transmission failure, even if your machine is under warranty, Honda will reject that warranty claim because they spell it out in plain language in the owners manual, not to use floorboards on that machine..
A heel toe shifter is not the reason transmissions fail. I had a GL 1800 Goldwing for two years, I won’t go into why I didn’t like it. But I will say, I went back to a Yamaha royal star Venture from the goldwing buyer??, my current royal star venture is my third Venture since 1986..
my royal star venture came from the factory with floorboards and a heel toe shifter. The heel toe shifter is not attached directly to the shift shaft. It is attached through linkage with Heim joints… The heel toe shifter rocks on a pivot bearing. The effort, the force of every shift does not go on to the shift shaft of the Yamaha set up..
I do not “ attack “my shifter on any of my motorcycles because I used to be a mechanic at several different motorcycle shops. I see how people attack their shifters, they act like it’s a Kickstarter lever or a foot peg sometimes. I see them slamming the whole weight of their leg onto the shifter to try to find neutral. I see them riding with their foot resting on the shifter… if those people only knew what they were doing when they rest their foot on the shifter or attack the shifter with a lot of effort or rest their leg on it. They should run their oil over a magnet and watch how much metal comes out with the oil when they change it. I’m sure their shift forks are burnt if not bent also..
A transmission failure is pretty final. When the transmission locks up, pulling the clutch in does not save you. The clutch is before the transmission, so when the transmission locks, the rear wheel is locked until the bike stops. Experienced it myself. I was commuting to work on my Yamaha RZ 350 2 stroke twin..It was my fault, I thought that the engines of the RZ was the same as the RD engine. I am very very familiar with the RD engine because I road race one for eight years, winning six road racing championships, to time national champion.. so when I got the RZ, I changed the transmission oil, but I only put 1.1 quarts of oil in the gearbox. The transmission holds 2 quarts of oil. I did not know that. I rode the bike for several weeks low on oil. On my way to work one morning the transmission locked. I was going uphill. I dragged the Perelli phantom rear tire which was only about 400 miles old down to the cords.. I pulled the clutch in but like I said, the clutched only disengage is the transmission from the crankshaft, it does not disengage the locked transmission from the rear wheel. So I was at the mercy of my skill/reactions. My bike was fishtailing uphill, and the skidmarks were about 150 feet long. I was doing about 60 miles an hour when the transmission locked.. I did not crash but I don’t know how I was that lucky because of the way the bike was fishtailing..
when I split the cases to repair the transmission. I discovered that one of the gears seized on the shaft. I had six broken gears that had teeth broken right off of the gears, and a seized main shaft. I worked part time at a Yamaha shop at that time evenings and Saturdays so I was able to get parts at cost. There was one gear in there that dealer cost was $270…It was one of the gears that the shift fork would slide left to right ..Rebuilding the entire transmission cost me nearly $600 just in parts. I did all the work. But after that close call, even though I had replaced everything that was broken in the transmission, I sold the machine. I just did not trust it anymore after that..
baby you are transmissions. Never take first gear RPMs up real high and then shift to second. That is one hell of a collision that goes on inside a transmission shifting from 1st to 2nd. Second gear is the one that is going to fail in your transmission if you are going to have a failure. That is very very common to have second gear go out on you. It’s best to just get moving in first gear, then shift to second around 15 miles an Hour.. when you shift, shift as quickly as possible. Not as hard as possible, just quickly because the transmission will be happier if you shift quickly. Formula One car transmissions are also sequential transmissions, much like motorcycle transmissions. Those transmissions shift in one 2000s of a second..Of course they use paddle shifts in formula one. There’s another thing many people do not realize, you really don’t need to use the clutch if you are good at matching the transmission speeds. When I roadraced motorcycles.. The clutch was really only necessary for the start, after the start of the race, I rarely used the clutch.. The same crashing goes on inside a motorcycle transmission whether you use the clutch or not. It’s just that you need to be precise on letting off the throttle at the right time and then shift while there is no deceleration load or acceleration load on the transmission at that instant. Transmissions go through hell. They are often referred to as “crash boxes”
if you look at the gears in the video. You will see blocks of metal on the sides of some of the gears. Those are called dogs. When you shift, those blocks on the sides of those gears, go into holes/ slots on the gear next to those blocks. That is all a transmission shifts. The shift fork slides the gear with the dogs on it to the side and those dogs go into holes on the gear beside it. Those teeth around the outside of every gear or always always constantly matched with the gear it is opposite. That’s why they are called constant mesh sequential transmissions. Constant mesh means those gears are always messed with the gear they are facing, sequential means you have to go from first gear, up through neutral, to second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and when you want to dance if you have to go 6th to 5th to 4th 3rd to second to neutral to first. That is the sequence, that’s why they are called sequential..Formula One car transmissions are also sequential constant mesh. That’s why when they spin off and go into the grass, you’ll see them sitting there and you wonder why they don’t get going again, it’s because they are trying to get from sixth gear or fourth gear into first gear by going through the sequence
Who are you and how can i get in touch? I have 148k on my f6b. 2nd gear went out a week after a i bought the bike at 41k. Skipped second for 100k miles. Now third is kicking out. Such junk. I tried to bring it back to the dealer (Barneys in Florida) a week and a half later after I bought it and they would not take it back. It's my 24th bike since the early 70s, never missed a gear, so you guys that says its bad shifting can stop before u start.
So what causes something like that to break what did the guy do wrong
can you tell me what gears those are as far as 1 thru 5 on the shift pattern and is there a transmission diagram of the shift pattern showing the gears engaging as it shifts
May I ask would you have a idea on on something is going on with my 2008 goldwing I just started to have a slit problem downshifting from 5th gear it feels stiff .May I ask what could that be I need to bleed clutch this I'm aware of and also I plan on changing slave cylinder.??
broken teeth on the left, cooked gears on the right
Does this bike have a heal toe shifter? It takes a lot to brake a selector drum!
I'm on my second gl1800 and no transmission problems
Bass Player you’re 100% correct on that heal toe shifter they are a guaranteed problem. When I was looking for a used bike anytime I saw one of those shifters I was done looking at that bike immediately.