I had this relic running pretty good until the other day. All of a sudden, it became difficult to downshift. It's possible I snagged the shifter on a stump or something, but I don't think so. If I had to guess, I would think the selector fork is bent or loose. Holding the lever down disengages the clutch, but it stays in the same gear. If you tap the lever down briskly you can kind of sling it into a lower gear, but it won't downshift using normal technique. Upshift works normally. Oil is pretty fresh, and level is correct. I am hoping some of you guys with old Honda experience might have a handle on this kind of problem.
A buddy had a similar issue with his 250SX a couple years ago. We tried several times to find the root cause, never with any luck. Eventually he just gave the ATC to me, and I parted it out on eBay motors. I made $750 in profit, LOL. I have no advice other than to try to find an intact tranny, locate the damaged component, and pull a switcheroo.
Thanks for the reply, Daisycutter. No way am I going to part this out. It's in really nice shape for such an old model. In fact, I snagged a whole pile of parts when I was flying out in Bush Alaska, and I plan to build a second machine - this one as a thrasher. This one set me back $100, with a bad alternator, missing case cover and no rear tires.
So, now it's shifting better - still a little notchy. It's cool when stuff fixes itself. Must have been a piece of crud floating around in the gearbox mucking up the works. I was out pulling stumps with it today.
