Hi! After and hour on line with my friend in India, he figured out the problem. For the record, the problem is I could not engage any gears beyond 1st unless I used the neutral finder. But I could down shift from 4>1.
Recall that my friend and I had to replace all the gears because they shattered some years ago. My fault, looks like there was a slow drip from the gear box, and the oil was low. In my defense, it seems like it happened when running, so there wasn't a large pool of oil on my garage floor and I just ignored it. Also, the oil that was in there was shot. It was more like runny scrambled eggs than oil/grease.
Ok, 2 issues:
1) I had the ball bearing cap 180 degrees off. There is an indent that needs to face the shifting mechanism. Evidently that was restricting some movement of the shifter.
2) There is an adjuster screw with a locking nut to the top right of the ball bearing cap. I don't know what it is, just my friend told me it was way out of adjustment. I removed the assembly, and had to get the locking nut loose. I put it back in and could feel a spring providing resistance. I screwed it in until my friend told me to stop, then put the locking nut on. We did some fine tuning per his view of this thing over my iPhone. Amazing he could see such clarity.
I put it all back together, and for the first time in probably 6 years, literally everything works!!!!! It runs great, it shifts beautifully, all the lights work, my little clock I mounted on the front fork nut works (btw there are 2 batteries in there, one for the light too...so that was 2 trips to the battery store just to get that thing working), it brakes well, everything. Victory at last!!!!! Feels so good to get her on the road. Though this might sound somewhere between poetic and corny, I swear she is looking a bit proud when I'm showing her off around the neighborhood!
Thanks to y'all for the support.
Topic: For the record, shifting problem solved, and victory!!! (Read 1867 times)