gotta disagree, that clunk isn't just a sound, it's gears engaging at a higher rpm than they should be.
Eventually something is going to break..
If it's suppose to drop to 900 rpm at idle than that's what I'm going for.
Sorry 5speed, while yours
might be a
little worse than most due to the slightly higher revs that it seems is common to your year/model Spyders (which apparently are programmed
NOT to drop to 900 rpm until quite some time after starting & they've started moving!
) that clunk
IS quite normal and if you ever get to the situation where your Spyder
ISN'T doing it to some noticeable degree, then something is
DRASTICALLY WRONG!! :yikes: nojoke :lecturef_smilie:
Do some searching of the older threads here, newbies to these gearboxes/constant mesh transmissions have been concerned about '
the clunk' since around 2008/the release of the very first Spyders, and there's a
LOT of discussion on it, but
NO DAMAGE reported that's ever been attributable to it, even on those Spyders out there that now have done well over 150,000 miles! This clunk occurs because these things run a constant mesh transmission with straight cut gears, so once it's all up & running as you're riding along, the gearbox input and engine output are both turning at the same speed, and you don't experience the clunk on any gear-changes
then!
BUT, when you first start the engine, the gearbox is not yet turning because there's no gear selected, it's in Neutral. So when you
do first select a gear from Neutral, you are meshing already turning engine components with the stationary gearbox components and there's a clunk, regardless of you selecting First or Reverse.
ALL constant mesh gearboxes do this, and straight cut gears make the clunk sound/feel worse cos there's no real way to avoid or minimise the basic physics of conservation of energy & movement - something that's moving wants to keep moving; something that's stopped wants to stay stopped; and when you force the square cut gears together to match rotational speeds with the engine, there
WILL be a clunk!!
Sure, you can damp that clunk down a bit by using (or forcing
) it to occur at lower revs than are ideal, risking stalling &/or other damage; maybe you can do that by using a heavier oil (that'll cost you fuel economy and power & likely do other damage besides :cus: ), or it
might happen a tad less obtrusively when the oil is cold/not yet up to
its operating temp (which takes far longer to reach than the coolant does! :shocked: ) & therefore at the heavier weight end of its rating anyway; but if you bother to do the searching and reading, or even if you just go and check out any other motorcycle or car/truck/semi you can find with a constant mesh transmission and square cut gears, you
WILL find that they
ALL WILL clunk when first selecting any gear from Neutral! :thumbup:
If you want to fret about it & waste good riding time chasing it, then of course that's your privilege; but unless it's a massive noise & jolting shock that pretty much throws you off the Spyder (& if you're not used to it, maybe even then!
) there's a very good & highly likely chance that you're simply experiencing the '
to be expected' clunk that's normal, yet has concerned newbies to these types of gearboxes/transmissions since they were first invented; and the reality about our Spyders is that there is
always going to be some clunk on first selecting any gear after Neutral - there
HAS to be, at least until the basic laws of physics as we know them change! :thumbup:
Ride More, Worry Less!! 
hyea:
