FYI Shift Linkage 2012 RTL

[JayHawker]

Recently I started out on a trip on my 2012 RTL and about 125 miles from home the bike would not shift into gear. Had to have bike towed to Can Am dealer and they found that the splines on the inside of the aluminum shift lever (cheapcycleparts.com part number 420257881) that goes on the transmission shaft were striped out. They didn't have a replacement part in stock. So they were able to jury rig it which got me back home.
Next day I ordered a new part from cheapcycleparts.com. Got the part in a few days and put the new part on bike. After putting it on I jacked up bike with just the rear wheel off the ground to check if it would shift. When I check it would go into reverse but would not shift out of reverse. So I thought maybe the adjustable shift rod the screws into it must need adjusting. Adjusted it making it longer and it would shift into forward gears but not reverse. Tried shorter and reverse but no forward gears. To make a long story short I tried 6 or 8 different lengths, no go.
I gave up and adjusted so it would go in forward gears so I could take to dealer to fix. Now comes the real revelation, let bike down off jack to move to garage and guess what all the gears worked. Only thing I can think of was computer didn't like just the rear wheel being off the ground. With ABS, traction control, stability control, and god knows what other things the computer controls it did't like only rear wheel being off ground. Anyone had a similar problem?

 

[Chupaca]

Curious...

If yours is a manual it should not make a difference (not sure about the button reverse) but if it is a semi-auto I believe you have to have your foot on the brake when shifting from R to 1st. I am assuming you were not sitting on the spyder while shifting. Of course you could have had your foot on the brake in which case it is strange that you can only shift in one way..:thumbup:

 

[Snowbelt Spyder]

2012 RT Limited, SE5 transmission only.

No need for the brake. Shift between R and 1st without the brake every time I back out of the garage. You just can't be moving. But what you DO need to do is align the dot on the end of the shaft with the slot in the new shift lever. You might want to check that. As a reminder, there are speed interlocks for shifting into and out of N (2 MPH), and into and out of R (Not Moving), that come off the rear wheel speed pickup. So, was your rear wheel spinning when you were trying to make these shifts? You could have simply been interlocked out of shifting because the system thought you were moving.