1985 Honda 200m shifting problem

[DillyDilly]

Hello, I have a 1985 atc 200m in very good condition. It was given to me by a friend as it was her husbands who has passed away. I road it a little hard in the trails one day and my foot pulled up on the shifter while riding and made a grinding noise. It now will not shift into first or neutral. The shifter still feels normal and springs back as it should. I now have to pull start it since it wont go into neutral. (Trike has been parked since this happened) I can shift it from 2nd into 3rd,4th, and 5th gear still. Not sure what the problem is as i haven't gotten into the motor yet. Thought I'd ask on here before jumping into something ive never worked on before. Thanks!

[Homeless Dave]

sounds like a broken shift fork (or something equivalent, i am thing in terms of a car transmission), but i could be wrong. if you need to start it, hold the shifter between gears, this will disengage the clutch and then you could use the rope start. I advise you pull the engine from the trike and open it up. if something is broken, i would not ride it too much because i would be afraid of pieces that may have broken off getting lodged into places that can cause more damage. I know there are users on here that can help you more than i can.

[ps2fixer]

I can't really think much of anything else it could be other than the shift fork idea. Haven't heard/seen of this problem either so always would be interested in hearing if you find anything out. If you need a shift fork, one from another 200cc 3 wheeler should work, I can look up the part numbers to get the proper interchange, just would need a photo to show which one broke.

Good luck, grab a service manual, and a trick for splitting the crank case is to use gravity to hold things together, aka lay the engine on it's side to take it apart. If done carefully you should be able to just look in there, if nothing is broken/bent, clean up the gasket surface and set it back together. Make sure to lift slowly as some of the shafts might want to pull up from the suction with the oil, also same thing goes for thrust washers.