Quick warning for you if you run a Thruxton or a Speed Triple - a mate and I were doing a one-hour ride-out today and half-way I noticed a gear shift was 'sloppy'. I thought my boot must have slipped off the lever and carried on riding. On the next shift the lever just came loose completely. Fortunately, there was a layby just ahead and I coasted into that. The gear change linkage rod is held to the gear change arm by a fixing with a thread on one end (that screws into the arm) and a ball on the other (that the linkage rod is clamped onto). The threaded end had unwound from the arm and fallen out completely. Fortunately, I was able to screw it back in by hand and continue but if it had failed in the middle of an overtake or something it could have been nasty. I would recommend removing yours and putting some threadlock in there - that's what I plan to do. My mate has a Speed Triple and it has the same design. My Haynes manual covers the Bonneville, T100, T120, Bobber, Street Twin, Cup and Scrambler so I suspect they also use the same design. It's a shame that after 36 years of buying second-hand bikes and maintaining them myself and *never* having had a failure like this, I buy a bike new, have it serviced by the dealer every year and it literally just falls apart while being ridden. That's disappointing.
The Street Twin, Scrambler and T100 don't use a linkage as the change lever itself clamps directly onto the shift shaft. I wish my SS used a linkage as the selector forks are less likely to get damaged by an impact to the shift lever if the bike is dropped.
Happened to me , luckily I was right by an Auto repair and he lent me a 10mm wrench to get it back tight, hit it with blue loctite when I got home and it's been fine since
There was a recall for this problem for dealers to reapply a thread locking compound to the threads. Apparently there was a problem with a batch used on the production line permitting the assembly to loosen.
My speed rs had the same. As above, I noticed it getting "sloppy " for changing gears and luckily, spotted it with a couple of threads left. Loctite and all has been well after.
I will ring my triumph dealer to check what recalls were do e when I bought it as I know there were a few done
I had problems with gear linkage on both my speed twin and Thruxton R. Both were fixed by my main dealer. Yes disappointing that oem parts should fail on new bikes.
I had problems with gear linkage on both my speed twin and Thruxton R. Both were fixed by my main dealer. Yes disappointing that oem parts should fail on new bikes.
I very lightly dropped my gen1 Street Twin on the left hand side. Despite holding the bars as she went over I bent the gear change lever and from that point downshifting, especially 4th to 3rd required the lever to be raised slightly before applying downward pressure. This issue is well known and my local dealer said it would be at least £600 to repair. I bought the parts and did it my self in about 6 hours - £150. If I needed to do this again I recon 3hrs. The interesting thing was one of the clutch springs was not seated against the pressure plate correctly and there was some ware on the clutch basket pressure plate bolt spigots. Anyway, I used the revised Triumph gear selector shaft (T1991944 from memory) and now both clutch and gear change are smoother than before the drop. Mine has done 18500 miles.
I just had a slow tip over in the garage, landing on carpet of my 2025 Thruxton Final Edition and was surprised that the gear shift linkage broke so easily. Thankfully it was a cheap part ($26) and I even got my dealer to get it claimed under warranty. The parts guy said that his rep said they know about it… but no recalls for it yet, or ever. I got an extra one just in case!
