83 honda magna v45

I was told that a common problem on the honda magna v45 bikes is that
second gear gets stripped. Can anyone say weather riding the bike in
such a condition, just going from first to third, could be seriously
damaging to the bike?

 

Yes. It will be.

 

Yes, it will be bad for your crankshaft and rod bearings because engine
RPM will be too low to provide enough oil pressure. You engine really,
really, really needs second gear to keep turning fast enough to carry
the loads you are trying to apply to it.

Somebody told you a tale that isn't really likely. A hundred years ago,
cars had transmissions with straight cut teeth on the gears and the
gears actually had to be slid in and out of mesh. it was possible to
actually strip the teeth off of a gear if the shifting wasn't done
correctly.

But all the gears in your motorcycle transmission are fully engaged at
all times.

Shifting is done by sliding the gears sidways so some large blocks of
metal on the *sides* of gears engage slots in gears next to them. These
blocks of metal are called "dogs".

When riders shift carelessly, the edges of the dogs get rounded off and
the transmission "pops" out of gear into a "false neutral".

Mechanics routinely grind the dogs with a dremel tool to fix the gears.
It may even be possible to get at second gear through the oil pan on
some models in order to "undercut" the dogs without splitting the
cases.

There are other possibilities that cause a transmission to pop out of
gear. Maybe the shifter dogs are bent or worn and they don't slide the
moving gear over to one side enough to engage the dogs into the
adjacent slots.

Or, sometimes a 50-cent circlip that is supposed to keep the slotted
gear in a certain position on the shaft is worn out and the slotted
gear actually slides away from the gear with dogs on it.

Another possibility that allows a tranmission to "jump" out of gear is
the detent mechanism that holds the shifter drum in a certain position.
It is usually a spring and ball, or a spring and a short shaft with a
rounded end that falls into a valley on a star-shaped cam on the
shifter drum.

Later designs use a spring loaded arm with a roller that falls into the
valleys of a star-shaped cam called a "star wheel" on the end of the
shifter drum.

 

I'm afraid that while the gearbox treatise is accurate, this piece is
nonsense. It implies that running an engine slowly will blow it up.