"Half-Shifting" clutch problems

[Teh_K]

Sorry to create *another* clutch thread, but I don't really know how to diagnose my issue. Let me explain...

- Upshifts are always (~100%) of the time nice, quick, complete shifts - like they ought to be.

- Downshifts, however, are the problem. Let's say I'm in 4th gear and am coming to a stop in 1st gear. About 90% of the time, the process of going from 4th -> 1st is composed of 3 steps:

1. Pull in clutch lever and click down of the shifter.
2. Shifter gets 'stuck' in between gears and will not continue.
3. Ever-so-slightly blip clutch lever until it catches (hearing an audible *clunk*), and repeat steps 1 thru 3 until in 1st gear.

I am not able to just hold in the clutch lever and go click-click-click down into 1st gear - I have to engage the clutch every time I downshift. What's the problem?

[Black_peter]

Hmmm sumpin in the transmision..


Really though, bikes don't have syncros,
(sort of helpers that get the gears to mesh.)
I'm thinking something out of wack in the
selector mechanism.
Maybe something busted maybe an adjustment?
Has is always been like this?

The transmission is spinning as long as you are moving the engine and tranny are just going different speeds. So its not like something in there is stopped and needs the clutch to spin it.
I'm guessing it is the load change that alows better shifting.
I'm not too hip to the Kat tranny.
After looking at the tranny I can see that wear to the selector drum could cause differences in up shift or down shift. So loading the tranny is allowing some shift that lets the selector fall into the next gear..
Looks (I hate to say) messy and if a dealer does it, pricy..

[Teh_K]

Ugh, I was hoping it was something easy...

Let's see, it has been doing this since I got the bike (May of this year), but might be doing it more often lately... I can't really say. As far as I know, it's been doing it since I got it...

Also, I'm not exactly sure whether the issue occures more often when the bike is hot or cold - I'll have to see.

And, for whatever it's worth, I'm running on Castrol GPS (synthetic) oil.