jumping out of gear

I have a 50/5 with about 100K. About 500 miles ago we were in a stop/go situation and she jumped out of 1st gear into neutral; I think I had the clutch in and was in 1st waiting to move into traffic; I thought it might of been a fluke.

But today, was in 2nd gear, just moved to 3rd, sort of lugging it, probably at only 3000 rpm and trying to accelerate, when all of a sudden she bangs into neutral and the revs go up. I say "bangs" because it sort of scares the life out of you, takes you by surprise, and does make kind of a banging noise.

The trans in its whole life has only needed one bushing replaced.

From the Haynes manual there appears to be several possible causes, and all in the trans

So a couple questions: (1) Is this a "must fix now" situation? and (2) Anyone you know that is good with trans diagnoses and repair that I can send it to, if necessary?

BTW, between the two occurrences I did about 500 miles without popping out of gear. Maybe I could quit lugging the engine for awhile to get me through the summer?

thanks for your help

Neal

Neal -

My suggestion would be to first be sure you are solidly shifting into each gear. I'm sure you know how to shift and have been doing it for years, but one really needs to slow down when shifting these Airheads trannies. I was getting false neutrals (maybe a little different than your problem) on my /7 years ago. The trick for me is to shift like normal (say 2nd to 3rd) and keep your foot on the shift lever pulled up all the while that your are letting out the hand lever. Once the hand lever is all the way out, let off the foot lever. If that doesn't help the situation, then likely there are issues with the shifting mechanism (aka "dogs") in the tranny. These dogs fit into holes in the gears...if over time, the sides of the dogs or the holes get worn, then popping out of gear can happen. But shifting slowly can ensure that the dogs get as deep into the holes as possible.