transmission acting strange

First off, I want to thank everyone for their warm welcomes. The temps have been in the triple digits here, so I took off at 6 AM, when it was nice and cool, hoping to do a couple hundred miles on the 07 GRiSO. Up to today, it has always performed flawlessly. I went over and through some mountains for about 40 miles. Then it didn't want to shift from 2nd to 3rd, or 3rd to 4th - I don't remember which. I thought I must have been spacing out or something and it was something I did. I was just thinking how smooth the tranny on the GRiSO shifted - almost like a Jap bike - when I came to a stop sign. It downshifted fine, and went from 1st to 2nd normally, but wouldn't go into 3rd. I stopped and it did the same thing again. I thought I'd better try to get the thing home and turned left instead of right onto the highway and started heading for the barn. It didn't want to go into 3rd again, but I backed off the throttle and it went into 3rd and behaved fine for about 17 miles into town. It wasn't making any weird noises and acted completely normal. I needed fuel, so I stopped at a gas station and looked at the shifting mechanism. Everything looked OK. It was almost like something had gotten jammed in the linkage and was keeping it from moving. It looked fine, though, and always worked in 1st and 2nd. It worked OK all the rest of the way home but I had to shift it slower and more deliberatly - kind of like my T3 or LM3 but it didn't clunk like they do. I put it in the shop on the rack, grabbed the v11 and headed back out for a few hours while the weather was still cool. The thermometer on the GRiSO read 75 when I got it home, so it wasn't being caused by excessive heat. When I returned, I checked all the linkage fasteners and was able to tighten them all a little. The fastener holding the lever to the shaft was the loosest, maybe 3/4 of a turn loose. I jacked up the rear and was able to turn the tire and manually shift through all six gears up and down several times. I checked the oil. The level was perfect and the oil nice and clean. I ran a thin magnet into the trans several times, but it always came out super clean. It was too hot to try to take it back out, so I don't really know if I helped anything yet. It's funny, but of my 5 Guzzis, the GRiSO is the last one I would expect to have tranny trouble since it has always been so smooth. It has about 11500 miles. Any ideas? Thanks,
Simon

Clutch related? Check the plunger on the lunch lever. See if it's loose. Try adjusting the lever wider and see if that helps.

In my experience the 'Nuovo Six Speed' has been the shining light of reliability on the CARC bikes. I've never had to have one apart. I have taken one apart, but not because I had to!

Pete

Like Pete said the GRiSO 'box is a mighty fine thing. With the bike idling in neutral . how much clutch lever travel do you need before you hear the clutch plates free up ? How much throttle cable slack do you have ? How old is your clutch fluid ? Have you changed the front Carc torque arm bush to the Stelvio one ?

Thanks. I will check these things and report back.

I adjusted the lever wider and changed the clutch fluid. I finally had a chance to go out this morning for about 150 miles in the early morning coolness. The first 40 miles or so it behaved flawlessly. Then a couple times it wouldn't go into 3rd or 4th. When I would lower my foot and try it again it worked perfectly. I began to notice it would only happen when I accelerated hard and quickly. It felt as if the shifter was up against a brick wall or something. Then it dawned on me. I like to keep the toe lever adjusted fairly tight to my toe so I barely have to move the lever. I got new boots a couple weeks ago. The toe box on these boots is a little taller than my old ones. When I was shifting rapidly, I didn't move my foot on the foot peg at all in between shifts, and the toe box on my boot was not allowing the shifter to fully return to it's ready to shift position! I made sure to always turn my foot down a little after that and it never missed a beat. 2 minutes with the allen wrench and a slight upward rotation of the foot peg and no more intermittent shifting. These damn Guzzis! What a piece of junk! Why oh why didn't I get a BMW with automatically adjusting foot pegs?

Thanks for your time and suggestions. I wonder how many other problems are silly things like that?

Simon

always good when its an easy fix :-)

It's the simple ones that sometimes catch us out.