I don't like the reverse "clunk" as you say also.. My 2018 RTL has done that since I bought it new.. It sounds like the transmission is going out but many other Spyder owners tell me it is quite normal. One would think the engineers at BRP could solve this distasteful noise..
BIG F
That clunk is perfectly normal, isn't hurting anything, & it's a feature of any/every motorcycle or machine with neutral & a constant mesh transmission! :lecturef_smilie:
This is because whenever you select Reverse (or First from Neutral) the transmission must be disengaged & stopped before First or Reverse can be picked up by the already spinning engine output. I'm assured it's all to do with basic physics - some time ago this fella called Newton worked out that
"An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force." Objects (or first/reverse gears) tend to "
keep on doing whatever they're doing" unless there's a external force applied (ie, you selecting a gear - hence the clunk
). In fact, it is the natural tendency of objects to resist changes ... which basically means that no matter what the engineers might try to do, if you select either First or Reverse from Neutral, there's going to be
some degree of clunk! And you'll probably tend to notice the 'selecting First' clunk less, cos you'll usually then run on (clunkless) thru the rest of the now already spinning forward gears.... But when you come to a stop & (no matter how quickly/smoothly it may seem to happen to you
) select Neutral so that the transmission gears can stop and then select Reverse to start them spinning again, only now the other way, the clunk is waaayy more obvious (in fact, if you try to force it too quickly, the clunk may well be worse, cos the gears may not have completely stopped spinning the other way! :shocked: ) but it's still unavoidable!! Well, it's unavoidable unless someone smarter'n us can change those basic laws of physics or work out an inertia-less way around them?! :dontknow:
So just like every other motorcycle &/or machine with neutral & a constant mesh transmission, that clunk ain't going nowhere!! Probably the major reason you notice it so much on your Spyder when selecting Reverse is cos very few other motorcycles have an actual 'reverse gear' built into their constant mesh trans like our Spyders do, so they only feel it when selecting First from Neutral, while we've got a stand-alone built in & outstanding feature instead of something tacked on as an after-thought, if at all! :thumbup:
