Total Motorcycle Community Forums

my clutch was slippin and i replaced it, it was toast!

so i pretty much got a new clutch in 2 weeks ago. LOVED IT! changes, fibers, plates, and springs. soked the fibers in non-synthetic oil for 5 minutes.

since 2 nights ago at the spot, the clutch started sliipin again.

installed a new cable yesterday morning and gave it about an inch of freeplay on top adjuster/tensioner, went to deh spot that night and it was slippin again.

...WTF! it'll slip, and then all of a sudden catch. it was kinda hard to pop up a predictable wheelie.

any ideaz?

and tonight, it COMPLETELY gave out.

i was at the spot for maybe 2 hours, ofcourse it was slippin the whole time, but i juss put up with it. anyway, after i came down a wheelie, i grapped the clutch and reved it, but the bike moved "WTF", so the clutch wasn't engaging at all.

tried adjusting at top and bottom, didn't help.

push started it, so i can get it on my truck, and after about 20 feet of ridin it, i grapped the clutch , revevd, it and it was working again....

its weird.

some ppl said that it might be the basket? or that i could have a broken plate?

2-3mm of freeplay at the lever handle is the correct adjustment.

It's the racer-wannabes that put as much adjustment into it as they can. Any time you're stopped with the clutch lever pulled in you're cooking your clutch.

Did you reinstall the judder springs? Or install new ones?

Or did you have someone else do the work?

Did you change the oil when you changed out the clutch bits? Old oil could potentially damage the new plates. Especially if you're using the wrong kind of oil.

All kinds of possible problems here...

Likely you're going to need another new clutch stack, this time put the correct freeplay in the cable, and make sure that you assembled everything correctly according to the service manual.

Sev wrote:Any time you're stopped with the clutch lever pulled in you're cooking your clutch.

my 2 cents-

This sounds like a bit of a stretch to me for normal conditions. Being stopped for a few minutes at a stop light with good oil, the engine is not overheating and your not feathering the clutch would put a minimal amount of wear on the plates, springs, oil etc... at worse.

This just just doesn't seem to apply to normal riding. Now race like starts, dirty or cold/over heated oil, feathering the clutch would put additional wear and tear that is more than normal.

Stunting kills clutches (plates, baskets, other parts).

If you like to stunt, keep a good supply of clutch parts and bandages on hand.

Stunting also breaks frames, bearings and other assorted parts.
Long wheelies cause loss of oil pressure and a resulting engine parts failure.
So if you are going to stunt, you are going to ruin the bike mechanically.

No problem if you have unlimited funds and good health insurance.

Otherwise, you might consider tamer riding.

flw wrote:

Sev wrote:Any time you're stopped with the clutch lever pulled in you're cooking your clutch.

my 2 cents-

This sounds like a bit of a stretch to me for normal conditions. Being stopped for a few minutes at a stop light with good oil, the engine is not overheating and your not feathering the clutch would put a minimal amount of wear on the plates, springs, oil etc... at worse.

This just just doesn't seem to apply to normal riding. Now race like starts, dirty or cold/over heated oil, feathering the clutch would put additional wear and tear that is more than normal.

You missed the part where he said he had 1 inch of freeplay in the clutch cable at the lever.

So he's only starting to disengage the clutch when he pulls the lever. Any time he pulls it in it's slipping like crazy and starting to superheat it. If he ever sits at the lights in gear for anything more then a couple of seconds he's spending the whole time slipping the clutch.

For what it's worth, there are 25.4mm in an inch. The correct slack for his bike is either 2-3mm at the lever. Or 10mm of lever movement at the ball. So he's either got 13X too much slack or 2X too much slack depending on how or where he set the freeplay.

Either way I'll bet money he's cooking his clutch plates as we speak.

haha, thx for all the input guys....i'll open up the case tomorrow and see wats up. hopefully i won't have to buy new plates.

let me ask you guys this tho, does it matter where i adjust the slack from? or is it as long as i have 2-3mm up top?

The bottom is for major adjustments. The top is for fine-tuning it.

just finished gutting everything out

WARNING: what you are about to see may shock you

these are the 11th and the 13th plate counting from the outside. its one side of one steel plate, and one side of one friction plate. the rest of them look fine/new(i think...look at the last pic)

WTF would cause something like this? they look like rotors for gods sake!

what do i do?





here is the inner clutch basket, pretty damn grooved..(is this what caused it or can it be anything else?)

Looks like you slipped it until the fiber wore off the fiber plates and then it ate into the steels. Possibly your clutch was stacked incorrectly, or you didn't soak them in oil long enough (usually it's for 15-30 minutes). Did you measure the old stack height when you took it apart and make sure that you had the same stack height when you put it back together? There's supposed to be a specific stack height (height of fibers + steels) if memory serves. If you used the wrong size of steels (made it too tall or too short) that might cause what you're seeing.

All in all that's some pretty impressive damage.

Without having been there when it came apart I couldn't tell you precisely what went wrong.

You're going to need a whole new set.

nooo way dude, i hope you're wrong cause i don't wanna drop another 2 bills.

why would i need a whole new set? only 2 of the plates are like that ( 11th and the 13th)

and no, i didn't get the height...someone told me about it too but i wasn't able to find anything on it in the service manual.