Gearbox woes... Wont let me downshift.

[SpannerMonkey]

Riding my GN250 last night, and it felt fine going up the gears, but after 2-3 minutes of riding, going down the gears became a little hard... the lever would click pretty much all the way down till it met the exhaust downpipe, then STICK there, inbetween the selected gear and the one you want, force the lever back up, and it's inbetween said gears still. click down again and it will go to the gear you were after finally, but stick again, forcing you to gently pull it back up, or you end up back in the gear you were in before.
But after 5 more minutes riding the downshifting stopped becoming possible, with the gear lever just reaching all the way down, clanking off my downpipe, occasionally getting stuck again but not letting me downshift.
Any clues AT ALL guys?

[Gazdaman]

Is the clutch dragging at all? A dragging clutch will make downchanges feel a lot more difficult, changing up will still feel fairly normal.

The lever going too far doesn't sound good, that sounds like the selector drum in the gearbox might have come loose. Or is the lever slipping on the splines?

Gaz

[SpannerMonkey]

[SpannerMonkey]

Gaz, you are a fucking lifesaver! The lever was slipping on the splines. Now to check if it's the lever, or the shaft that's damaged

[Gazdaman]

There should be a pinch bolt on the lever to clamp it onto the splines, it's most likely that's loose or missing.

If the shaft is stripped (fnarr), it's a bit of a pain to change.

Hopefully it's simple and you can have it sorted soon.

Gaz

[SpannerMonkey]

Fixed. Turns out a non suzuki gear lever was used with shinner splines, these were stripped to literally nothing, it was smooth where the splines should be. Robbed a lever from a GSX250 which is shorter than I'm used to but works a treat =D