6th gear transmission issues

I have a 2010 vfr with 33,000 miles on it.

I recenty tried to the bleed the clutch and after some issues Everything was good.

Over the weekend I was riding on the highway in 6th and tried to pass traffic and as I rolled on in top gear it was as if the bike was skipping over teeth in the gear. It almost felt like a chain driven bike skipping teeth on the chain.

I went home and changed the oil. After a fiasco of dealing with a stuck on oil filter. Fresh Mobil one went in. There was a little but a glitter in the oil drain pan.

I but everying think back together and went for a ride and low and behold it's still having the issue.

While i was in thrrr I also decided to drain the rear dif fluid as well. After another disastrous bout of wrenching II nearly stripped the drain bolt and then managed to sheer of the fill plug bolt.

I've been googling the hell out of this and haven't come up with much. Has anyone had to have a vfr tranny rebuilt and if so would anyone how many arms and legs is this going to cost.

 

Could be a few different things. The expensive part is just getting to the trans. to take a look. Not sure how hard it is on your bike. Once into the trans. it could be a bent shift fork broken spring, shift dog(s) worn/rounded off. I don't think that will be too expensive. Hopefully you'll get away with replacing a gear pair. Read up in the manual, then call some shops if you are not doing it yourself. It is not terribly difficult, but it is a fairly long job. Find a shop with a lower shop rate, or a Honda Technician that does work out of his garage. Even if he is not a Honda Tech. he should be able to help you. Was there some traumatic event(s) that led to this? If so, let the guy fixing it know.

 

Are you sure it wasn't a misfire? How many miles do the plugs have on them? Are the coil packs original?

When rolling-on in top gear, it is the most likely time for a misfire to occur, and it can feel like the transmission is acting strange. I've seen this behavior in both motorcycles and cars, where top gear acceleration with a low rpm/heavy load can experience an issue as you describe.

For piece of mind, if you still have the old oil, request a sample kit from Blackstone Labs. They will send you a sample bottle and packaging to send the drained oil to their lab for analysis. The analysis is $35, not including postage. The analysis will indicate how much metal (iron, aluminum, etc.) is in the oil.

 

Just came across this thread and it sounds like the same thing I am experiencing with my 2010 VFR1200F. What was the resolution to the problem you were having? Would appreciate hearing from you.

 

Pretty sure that gear was toast. At the time i couldn't find dealer that wanted to touch it with a 10 foot pole in any kind of timely manner. And this happened in early May, so i just sold to a dealer and took a slight bath on it. But i did well selling all the accessories elsewhere.
Ended up picking a minty 07 VFR800 with full luggage and only like 7K miles on it at the time.

 

Was kind of afraid that might be the answer. Thanks for the reply. Out of curiosity, are you happier with the VFR800?

 

I kept it for 2 years, once my son was born i had no time to ride.

Pros:
Smaller size and was way more nimble
THE SOUND WHEN V-TEC kicked in!
The side cases were actually useful

Cons:
Everytime you have it throttle you missed the power of the 1200
For my situation: the size of the 1200 was better for 2 up riding.
I felt like it hated hispeed running. where as the 1200 would go into cruise missile mode

If there was a 1000CC vfr that sounded like the 800s I would be the happiest person

 

I know this is a kind of zombie thread but there are quite a few reports of 6th gear transmission failure emerging. It starts with 6th but progressively gets worse until the whole gearbox is toast. Go to the VFR1200 forum on Bikers Oracle for tails of woe. It seems to only affect the early bikes 2010-2012 (before the bikes with TC) and it seems DCT bikes are unaffected. I haven't found anyone describing the root cause but some claim it is something to do with a failing clutch bearing.

 

Glad to see my old thread keeps living lol.

The really crappy part was when my failed, I couldn’t get a dealer in Connecticut to touch it.
So I had to offload it.


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Thanks for the info. I'll check out Bikers Oracle. I can tell it's gotten worse in 6th gear, but it is still limited to 6th gear. Haven't checked with any dealers about repairs yet or decided if I will attempt splitting the cases myself this winter. If I go with the dealer option, I'm sure I could probably pick up another bike for what that would cost. If I do this myself, it may never run again. Oh, well, glad it's not my only bike.

 

My 2015 had this issue at 40,000k's. Paid $5000 having the gearshift drum replaced by a non dealer mechanic with a genuine Honda one that lasted 3,000k's before have the same issue. Mechanic, Dealer the parts were ordered through and Honda Australia refuse to help! I loved this bike but I'll probably part it out and get a Tuono V4. Definitely never buying Honda again

 

Holy crap. What a disaster.


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No experience of this with a Honda but 2nd gear is pretty weak on many Suzuki 4-cylinder bikes from the 90's. My RF900 started skipping out of 2nd gear regularly so I pulled the engine out and had the dealer do a repair; not a lot of parts were replaced , just the affected gear pair and the shift fork, but the labour was significant.

On the Suzuki the root cause was the design of the engagement dogs that lock the gears together; to make it easier to slip from 2nd to N, the 2nd gear dogs are rough-cast not machined. Depending on the casting the undercut angle that holds the dogs in place under power was insufficient and eventually the corners of the dogs rounded a bit and the gear could jump out under power, which flexed the shift fork. Left too long the shift fork would likely snap off in the gearbox...

There's a fine line in gearbox engineering between a gearbox that shifts easily for the casual user and one that positively locks the gears together. Sounds like Honda may have erred on the easy-shift side of that line for 6th gear? The solution may be as simple as making sure to shift the gear lever fully when going 5th--6th, but once the disengagement becomes more regular, damage to the dogs and shift fork will make the problem progressively worse.