harleyKmodel

When I got my pile of parts for the 52 K, it was pretty much an engine in the frame.
I tried to shift it and could get it to shift from neutral to low and back again, but couldn't shift to second, third and fourth.
So I split the cases and cleaned everything up.
The gear shifter cam is quite hard to turn by hand. Harder to turn in one direction than the other. To me, It seems too hard to turn.
the "top hats" were in bad shape so I have replaced them.
I suspect the cam follower may have too much spring pressure, or maybe too much friction with the pawl and springs.
It's hard for me to tell how hard these parts should move by hand.
Shouldn't I be able to rotate the cam follower by hand through its range of motion in both directions?
Is there a better way to manually check gear train movement?

Was transmission all completely disassembled with all sliding or moving surfaces closely examined? Maybe shifter cam axle binding for whatever reason. Polish the cam slides, they should be smooth. It should shift by hand on the bench as you rotate the assembly. If it binds at all figure out why. Severe cases of binding could be gear mix miss match by a tooth or bent mainshaft, loose or bad bearings. Mainshaft problems uncommon unless wrecked hard. Somethings not happy...Erik

The gear shifter cam is quite hard to turn by hand. Harder to turn in one direction than the other.

It's not all that easy to turn the plate by hand. But it is possible, my wife woudn't be able to do it. Perhaps you have the wrong detente spring in there ?
You do need to turn the shafts as well when trying to shift. Also all of the sliding gears must be free to move on their shafts.

So you want to rotate the assembly in normal power feed direction while shifting. Are any shaft bearings loose? Also always replace all the Shifter Related Springs. Erik