Reverse Gear Box Inspection

I started a new thread since my problem has changed from "chaincase oil leak" to "reverse gearbox inspection". The previous thread was: http://www.ty4stroke.com/viewtopic.php?t=122264


My servo motor seems to be working as designed based on testing of putting power to the forward and reverse circuits. Orange wire is Positive (+) and white wire is Negative (-).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVav5WXLBmk


My gearbox seems to have some glitches. Please take a look at the video and offer thoughts as to what my next steps should be. It seems to work, but is a little "sticky" trying to move from reverse into forward.

Could this be caused by being "dry" (no gear oil in there)?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBjFFEu4bS8

Thanks,
Steve

Given the gear box was hard to put into forward, I am in the process of pulling it to dig into it deeper. I'll update this thread with what inspection yields.

when I had my servo out to replace the jack shaft bearing, there was a tonne of lube in there, yours looks pretty dry. id rip her apart (not much to it, nothing inside the case other then 2 gears and a chain.) theres a few oil passages and a drain that should be free and open. that wear on the one dog does look worn, its likely caused from not being able to be put into forward and there was pressure on the system or the throttle was applied. do you have a service manual? you can get a pdf loaded to a cd on ebay for 10 dollars, or connondalecentral.com has a manual from an 07 phazer. never had an issue with either manual, very descriptive. good luck getting her workin.

I had an issue with mine a few years ago, 07 FX. It started to jump in and out of foward on a trail about 6 miles from my cottage. Towed it back and took the gearbox out. Mine was burned up inside, I bought replacement gears and put everything back together making sure to align the gearbox to the chaincase. I don't believe that they were assembled properly at factory. (I bought this sled new) I had about 1700 miles on this sled when this occured but was out of warrantee due to time elapsed. I never really rode this sled the first year as I bought it as a spare for one of my kids but it never really got used till year 3 of owning it. I had dealer do all the updates (7) the second year and it only had 15 miles on it at that time. Needless to say the parts are very expensive ($734.00) I have kept an eye on it ever since with no more problems. I only use synthetic gearcase lube now and it always comes out clean when I do my year end oil changes. I personally believe Yamaha did not assemble mine properly and that is why it was dry. There were no oil leaks ever, I don't think it ever got any oil in the first place.

Handy and Smalltownpower thanks for sharing your experiences. I'll post some pics when I have the gearbox opened up. I'm really hoping to avoid spending $734 on parts for it. We'll see soon.

Here are some pics of mine. The one that was bad that was not engaging forward and not registering when in reversed had a much wider gap in B and the bearing A was a bit more pushed into the box compared to the to the good box.

Yours sure looked pretty dry in the video.

inside gear box

OK...here is what I found taking apart the gear box.

http://youtu.be/diCFoHwArDo

My thinking goes like this:
1. Gear oil leaked due to filler tube/grommet alignment issue
2. Over time, it got really dry in the gear box
3. The dryness caused it to become "sticky" and the fork couldn't move all the way to forward
4. It ran in this condition which caused the fork to wear against the dog
5. Now the fork is too worn to fully be able to move to forward (even if oiled)

Plan (depending on feedback y'all provide):
1. Order new fork
2. Order new gaskets for gear box
3. Order new filler tube and grommet
4. Order Part #68 (oil plug)
5. Reassemble

Please let me know what you see in the video as far as which parts you would replace. I need to tie this thing up in the next two weeks. Your input is much appreciated!

I would also order #48 dog gear because the slot for the fork is worn, just to be sure all slop is taken out. What about the bearings? How do they look? If they ran dry, can't be good.

Maybe the missing oil plug is part of the problem? Maybe it helps keep the oil in the box or something. A manufacturing omission? What do you think this plug does?

Thanks for feedback. Given that I have many hours into the teardown and don't want to risk losing time if it fails during riding season, I priced out replacing bearings and other parts recommended.

10 BEARING
11 OIL SEAL,SD-TYPE
12 BEARING (8CJ) (On Secondary Diagram)
39 BEARING
40 OIL SEAL,SD-TYPE
46 BEARING
48 DOG, TRANSMISSION SH
50 BEARING,CYL.#15
55 O-RING
59 FORK, SHIFT 1
66 O-RING
68 PLUG,OIL
69 GASKET 1
73 PIPE,OIL 1
74 GROMMET

The quote for these parts came to:
Retail = $413
PortYamaha = $345
Partzilla = $282


I ended up finding a complete gear box assembly on ebay with the description "Reverse gear box and shaft out of a 2007 Yamaha Phazer Fx - sled had 1087 miles on it. Reverse functioned perfectly."

This way, I have all parts from a working sled. I don't have to figure out if part#68 is missing or not and what it does. I can install it as-is and still buy a few new bearings for the shafts going thru the frame. And, I'll have some spare parts. All for a price about the same as buying individual parts.

Thanks again for all your input and help. This repair has definitely taken me deeper into the Phazer than I had planned, but hopefully it will now provide years of trouble-free riding!
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I believe your probably right on your guess of what happened, Because I live in Canada I paid premium for the parts. I replaced the fork, the shifter dog and the drive gear as they were all bad. I bought new bearings &nd seals from my bearing supplied because of price. I also bought my Yamaha parts local because this happened in January and I didn't want to lose ride time or I would have ordered my parts from Port Yamaha which I have used before. There was an article in SnowTech magazine that said for owners of 07 Phazers to look for oil leaks and take to dealer for repair as there were alignment problems on some machine during assembly. This article came out a year after I had problems so I'm still believing mine was bad assembly. Still kinda bitter about that.

I don't blame you for feeling a bit chaffed by the failure. I guess the good news is that now that you've had it repaired, it's been working fine. I hope mine has the same result! Thanks for sharing your experience and following along with my issue. Now....I only hope I remember how to put it all back together.

I actually found that putting it back together was easier than taking it apart. Unknown territory and all.

Nice job Herff. Will add this to faq and hopefully all your work will help someone else out. Too bad you couldnt add a sight glass to the box.