After completely restoring my bsa wm20 I have ran into an issue. After completing the rebuild i tried to ride it for the first time, but when the bike was put in to first gear it stalled and it was impossible to change gears and you could not feel any gears when trying to find a gear with the gear selector.
So i took off the gearbox and the gear plates. After opening up the gearbox there where no issues to be found, when closed up you could beautifully feel the different gears with the selector. Also the gear plates where cleaned and put back, also these where tested to see if they worked and they did.
While putting everything back on the bike i kept on testing everything and it all kept working. When the bike was completely rebuilt we tried to start it and select the gears, but the same problem came back. We do not feel any gears with the selector and the rear wheel is completely locked up even when the clutch is pulled in.
It took us some time to get to it, but I did what Bruce said.
We removed the primary chain, and everything seemed to work fine.
After putting it back together, it didn't work again.
So, we decided to remove two clutch plates because we thought there might be too much tension.
After doing that and reassembling everything, the kickstart didn't seem to work anymore.
It sounds like your mainshaft and sleeve gear are locked together. Possibly the main shaft is too far to the right and when you tighten the clutch nut it will pull the clutch in to the sleeve gear and everything will lock up. Slowly tighten the clutch nut a little bit at a time and see at what point it locks up. Make sure the right side mainshaft ball bearing is fully seated in the inner gearbox cover.
Now has the gearbox on this bike ever worked correctly?
Another possibility is the mainshaft and clutch tapers are worn out and the clutch is going on to the mainshaft too far. Or, the gearbox is assembled incorrectly?
Thank you very much Bruce!
I will check you tips whenI get to it again.
If it ever worked fine, is unknown to me as I got the bikes in parts and put it all together myself.
