Good day!  I've awaken a '72 LT2 from its 2-decade slumber in my garage. 3rd oversize piston and rebore and it's back in action!  A quick shakedown ride revealed quite a gusher of an oil leak from the gear shifter.  The parts diagram show a seal, followed by a washer and circlip, finally having the shifter lever on the end.  I appear to be missing everything except the gear shift.  



I don't see a groove for the clip to go into - is that correct, or is it just the seal?

I understand picture posting is not working, but dang I can't post links either (maybe because I'm new?). I had some images in a OneDrive gallery :(

You'll need to use a third party photo hosting site like Imgur or Google Photos and post the link to the photo here.

And yes, there definitely is a clip and washer outside of the seal.  My guess is the shift shaft moved inwards and the groove is hidden by the seal, which also explains the "gusher".

Just FYI, it's EXTREMELY easy to disengage the shift "claw" if the shift shaft moves in too far.  I've found it nearly impossible to re-engage the shift linkage without removing the clutch cover...  (with clutch cover removed, it's easy-peasy.)  

Might be prudent to get a clutch cover gasket just in case?

 

And yes, due to spammers the site owner blocked links until you get a dozen or so posts.

Interesting.  The bike still shifts OK but I know it took a spill on the left side before I took ownership of it - gear shifter was bent and the left side of the handlebars was bent.  I guess it would make sense the shaft got sent inwards during that event.  Would shifting still be OK if that happened though?  

I'm going to try here - take "https" and join it up with "://1drv" and ".ms/f/c/19efa8465f6112d0/EmkcfWmuZH5Hh2aUsUxHRqMBKwc4sBm4Iqf_6xv_ao-piQ" minus all the double quotes

Here is the link:  1drv.ms/f/c/19efa8465f6112d0/EmkcfWmuZH5...c4sBm4Iqf_6xv_ao-piQ

Definitely looks pushed in to me.  Until the "claw" disengages from the wheel and pins on the end of the shift drum, it will shift fine.  When it comes off the drum, it won't shift at all.

Your splines look pretty bad too...  make sure you tighten lever pinch bolt well to help prevent stripping them completely.  The kick starter splines on that model seem to suffer from stripped splines fairly often as well.  Make sure you keep the pinch bolt tight there too.  It's odd because other models didn't seem to have nearly the problems with the splines like the LT 100 (and HT 90) sometimes do.

Great, and thanks for posting that link!  Any further tips on procedure for pushing that shaft back outwards?  

It should pull out if you can grab it with something, seal lip is likely trapped in the groove.  

I'd probably pull the clutch cover and just push it back from that side.  But I have terrible luck changing that seal without disengaging the linkage on that design and with my luck would probably need to remove the cover anyway.  

Keep in mind that it "was" shifting fine.  When you removed the shift lever the linkage could have disengaged.  If you tried to pull and it didn't move, you might carefully install the shift lever again and see if it still shifts okay.  Once disengaged, the shaft will NOT pull out to where it needs to be until the claw is back over the shift drum pins.