I'm not sure what it is, and I know this doesn't help, but my '01 has the same problem. I've found its possible to make it jump ahead like that if you push it forward. Almost like it can jump a tooth, but not jump one back. It wasn't a big deal at first, just move the kickstart back on the splines, but its moved ahead so much I've lost the spring-ing back of the shaft. I think what I'm going to have to do is turn the engine over a few turns with the kickstart driveshaft to see if that will take care of it. If that doesn't work, I'll have to tear her apart... what fun! I'll have to look at my manuel and see if I can figure anything more out about this. Anybody else have any info on this?
Ok, just grabbed the schemtic off BikeBandit,
HERE is what it looks like. Can anybody explain to me how this works, and therfore why it can slip forward? I can understand how I've lost my springing motion, but from looking at the picture I won't be able to roll it forward more than a third of a turn. Looks like I'm going digging!