Can I Fix This $1000 RM125 That Won't Shift?

this was my good friend Levi's Suzuki rm125 if you're new here and you are unfamiliar with this bike we made a video this spring of Levi blowing the bike up and then we posted a video later in the summer trying to fix this thing both of those videos are linked in the description if you'd like to get caught up to speed as it stands right now the bike runs although very rough and only in first gear and neutral no boy no so with the CR250 build complete I finally have some time to tear this bike back apart and see if we can get this thing running and shifting once again also if you would like to see the CR250 in person it is currently at Yellowstone Motorsports in Boseman Montana you can enter for a chance to win that bike through December 14th I've watched Levi shred this bike way harder than anyone should be capable of seriously I love 125s and he offered for me to ride this thing once I wrote it for about 30 seconds and said get me off of this thing it was poorly tuned The Brak sucked the clutch sucked the foot pegs sucked yet Levi still managed to somehow smoke me while I was on my KTM 350 so Props to Levi he told me when he sold me the bike for $1,000 it was under the condition that he gets to ride it one more time before I sell it let's get this thing back up and running so Levi can wreak havoc on it one last time and let's see how long it takes to have the motor on the [Music] workbench put your Wagers in the comments of how long you think that took to get the motor on the bench 21 minutes and 12 seconds from when I started turning the first bolt to now anyone who's afraid of having to rebuild your two-stroke it takes 20 minutes to pull the motor also I consider Levi to be greated a lot of things but clearly wrenching is not one of them there were a lot of questionable things done during reassembly of that bike subframe bolts finger tight the carb wasn't even tightened into the boot at all that man can twist a throttle but I don't know that he can turn a wrench that's okay she's in good hands now I think I say that as I'm the one who helped him rebuild this motor and it's stuck in first gear so let's see what we can figure [Music] out [Music] Levi put the washers that were supposed to go on the head nuts on the base [Music] nuts than [Music] you okay [Music] with the engine cases split once again I thoroughly inspected the transmission for the fifth time I made sure every gear was ordered correctly every washer was accounted for and there were no damaged components that I had overlooked I ordered all new shift Forks as I received this comment that made me think the shift Forks or at least one of them must be the culprit visually inspecting them really wasn't all that helpful and I don't have a dial indicator but there are only so many factors that could cause a transmission not to shift this seemed like the most likely place to start so I reinstalled the transmission and replaced all all three shift forks I temporarily installed the other case half to see if I could get the transmission through all six gears I was indeed able to and I ordered a new set of gaskets to actually Bolt the case haves back together I won't be fully certain of the shifting until the bottom end is torqued but the fact that I could get it to shift through all the gears is certainly forward progress new gaskets have arrived and while I'm still waiting on a couple components including a clutch basket because you saw how gnarly that notching was we've at least got a new center case gasket which means I can bolt these case halves together again and torque them down and then make sure the transmission shifts fingers crossed that those shift Forks solve the problem I installed the center case gasket lubed up the transmission and installed the left case half I have not been torquing these bolts because a lot of the threads are on the verge of stripping so I feel more comfortable tightening these bolts by feel in this case the threads for this bolt were completely stripped out so Levi and I slapped a washer and a nut on the back side of a longer bolt janky fix but we weren't going for pretty Solutions at the time well guys first and neutral what could I possibly be missing I don't know right now but I'm going to split these cases again and we're going to figure it out after many helpful suggestions from Luke over at Fathead racing Cameron Nima my dad and some of my followers I Revisited this engine with a clear head and a determination to find the root of the problem after splitting the cases again I completely disassembled the transmission once again and this time I measured all of the washers with a set of calipers to make 100% sure that everything was in the correct order I was meticulous with my inspections and reinstalled the transmission after finding absolutely nothing of concern I also finally finally decided to Helicoil the damaged thread in the case to make this engine look a little more presentable and make sure that portion of the case is actually tight with nothing of concern to note regarding the transmission I shifted my attention back to an area that I had previously counted out as a possible culprit the shifting mechanism itself so I think I may have figured it out and if I did I've been looking in the wrong place the whole time I've taken the transmission apart so many times it's unbelievable I cannot find a single thing that concerns me in the transmission the shift Forks the shift Fork rods the transmission shafts the drum all looks good so I finally came back to the shifting mechanism here and took it all apart and we've got this guy right here the shift cam stopper and what do you know when I started inspecting it a little more closely I think it's got a little bit of a Bend to it and you can see a point right here where this has clearly been making contact with something that it should not be not to mention there should be a washer right there that was not installed I'm not sure if I overlooked that upon First Assembly or lost it but that is something I should definitely be better at as I know that needs a washer since I was super curious if I had just overlooked this I went back to footage from the initial tear down and as it turns out I have never removed this stopper until now in my head I must have figured well that doesn't need to come off for a transmission problem which was true as a couple gears did need to be replaced but it's a less and learned in inspecting everything during a motor tear down after a failure I think it is quite possible I may even go as far as to say probable that this is the culprit of all of our problems we'll get one of these and that washer ordered and see if this couple hours of brainstorming and looking thoroughly through Parks will uh pay off but waiting on that Park does not mean a total halt in progress these fork seals are absolutely oozing fork oil this poor steel frame could definitely benefit from a little protection and this rear brake line was mounted upside down so it's got a pretty nasty Kink right there that I don't trust the Pro X carburetor rebuild kit these fork seals and the frame guards came from primax get a couple fresh stickers and a handwritten note no better customer service than Prime and this rear brake line is simply used from eBay I would have bought a new one but I actually couldn't find one aside from direct OEM and they were pretty expensive this will get the job done [Music] isn't it a shame like sorry that well it is midnight I just finished a hockey game but parts arried today and I have to to figure out if my theory is correct or not old new so I was indeed correct about the bend look at that and look at [Music] that I was joking with my brother that if this doesn't work I'm just going to make a shiftless card it's like a shifter card except it doesn't shift it'll have first gear only please shift this has to be a joke this is some sick sick joke oh so there were a lot of factors contributing to this engine not shifting first of all the blown up transmission that was important the fact that this was bent I do think was important but it it it hurts it hurts for me to tell you what I'm about to tell you I really debated just saying this was the culprit but there's more to it my mother shifter was hitting the mother case so now you guys are probably sitting there like did I really just watch this whole video over a shift lever that was too low and I'm thinking the same damn thing like what the the crazy thing about this is there's no way Levi's shifter was this low the only other thing that makes this possible is the shift shaft was missing a washer behind it that washer in turn pulls this shift shaft back into the case about a millimeter so by fixing that missing washer that millimeter might be just enough to cause this bent old shifter to hit the freaking case oh you can't help but laugh but it just goes to show you need to look at every single factor I suppose this means this is good news and it's time to freaking reassemble this thing not tonight though I'm going to bed man so I had to go back to Old footage and see where this shifter was placed you can see here before the initial tear down this is where the shifter was located and with the shift shaft washer it still won't upshift here so my theory about the washer is correct because we know the bike used to shift here and you can see here when Levi reassembled the bike he installed the shifter even a notch higher which gave it no chance to upshift this is a ridiculous thing to overlook but I've never seen a shifter hit the case like this it's always been the ignition cover so I didn't even think to inspect right there additionally during the final assembly before Levi put the bike back together I did get it through all six gears but it was rough the roughness I believe was due to that bent drum stopper that I replaced as now the shifting is quite smooth so I went through a huge amount of unnecessary work and Levi sold me the bike for $1,000 when we could have just tilted the shifter down but it did result in fixing a different problem that we didn't really know existed either way far too much time spent but huge learning experience if you're wondering what you're watching right now I pulled the cylinder head to find no O-rings we were incredibly lucky that the bike didn't allow coolant into the crank case and blow up Levi forgot the O-rings when he installed the top end so I went to the box of RM Parts he had given me to see if the O-rings from the gasket kit were in there indeed they were oh Levi [Music] he [Music] he oh [Music] well fuel on choke on let's see if she fires [Music] first gear second gear third gear fourth gear fifth gear sixth gear fifth four third second first bang bang rm's back baby I can't believe it's been since to day woohoo it actually shifts really nice I have ridden this and it never shifted this smoothly what we fixed was undoubtedly important let's go what a roller coaster of a project this has been but the old rm125 is back not only running but shifting and although I can't help but feel a little bit embarrassed about what the solution was once again I learned something and I didn't quit I'm a man of my word so I might have this bike for a while as winter has arrived here in Montana so Levi may not get the chance to ride it anytime soon but he will get one more ride on it there is now just one week until I select a winner for the CR250 so if you would like to enter for your chance to win it is a great way to support me in my channel as well as have a chance to win a badass two-stroke if you would like to get yourself entered you can do so on my website canadavet.com and that link is in the description below as well I have have some awesome projects in the work to end the year and move into 2024 so if you haven't already subscribed to the Channel please click that subscribe button we are approaching 100,000 subscribers which is an enormous Milestone and I'm so excited to reach that thank you all so much for following along with this rm125 and I will see you guys soon with another video Let's Go wow

Channel: Kincade Pavich

Views: 217,681

Keywords: rm125, suzuki, 2 stroke, blown up, transmission, engine rebuild, shift forks, shifting, stuck in gear, only first gear, wont shift, dirt bike wont shift, blown up dirt bike, montana, wide open, eli tomac, engine build, clutch basket, roached clutch, levi specht, stuck nutz, pryme, pryme mx, jis screwdrivers, cr250, cr250 build, yz300, kx250, cr125, rm125 transmission, stuck in first, wont shift to second, shift shaft, shifting problems, fixing dirt bike, dirt bike repair

Id: Kc72l-NcQx0

Length: 19min 20sec (1160 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 08 2023