Slowly working though bits and pieces, on the agenda now is the clutch. Most of the metal plates have all burn marks... What does this ring do? it was a couple plates in from the back.... The new bits... New Vs old metals There doesn't look to be any orientation difference on the wear plates, they're soaking in oil (have been overnight). The metals need to be correctly oriented though. Question, how much should this be adjusted and when do you know to adjust it? This is the middle pressure plate holding bolt.
Also, the basket - is it meant to have a little play? There's not much but it does move slightly in and out, also side to side.
One last thing. The advice I got on metals orientation is something like "it doesn't matter which way they all go in as long as they all go in the same way". Does anyone have any experience indicating there is actually a difference? I can't see how physically (looking at how the clutch operates) it would really matter in terms of the pressing actions of the componentry, either side is up against a flat surface.
I dont remember mine having any play in it ... but its been awhile That spring sits with the 'skinny' fibre plate like this at the 'rear' of the stack... I assume its there to help move the plates during operation If u have notches on the fingers then they need to be carefully filed off When replacing the cover theres an alignment mark and an arrow on the front of the cover. Also use the correct torque for the spring bolts as Ive seen this on a couple ..... its very low .... 6Nm ? The shorter finger is not broken ... its so the basket can be maneuvered past the engine casing
Ah nice. I didn't notice the "Skinny" plate but certainly found it now. The "notches" I imagine are the plates wearing into the fingers and need to be removed to allow the smooth movement of the plates? I did see that alignment bit, a deeper recession and the arrow have to line up. Not sure why though, everything around the clutch looks pretty identical. That centre bolt... how tight did you do that up? I haven't moved the inner nut but it is threaded so there's some sort of adjustment there. I put all the plates/metals in and once I did that I can't seem to move the basket anymore so whatever "play" was there doesn't seem to be there any more... happy days maybe. The spring kit I got actually came with 6 springs when I needed 4, two spare I guess... but they are visibly longer than the original ones, but only just.
Ok so test run today, bedding in the clutch up and down the street and uhh... ...awesome Can't wait to put the fairings back on and do a bit more than what I just did because wow. New lease on life indeed!
I don't recall the clutch basket having play, but I wasn't checking for it. Old steel plates were worn but didn't notice any slippage in the clutch. Much smoother to engage and disengage with the new plates and springs though. The broken spring retainer is caused by not aligning the dots on the assembly and trying to torque it down... For anyone reading, if it's not sitting flush against the last friction plate, it's not installed correctly.
Question though for those of you who have done clutches one or more times... had some advice that when "bedding" in the clutch you want to "drop" it a bit for a few gear changes (not massively hard, but not feather it in as well) to wear the plates in a little. Good or bad advice? Sounds reasonable to me because you normally take the "skin" off things to break the surface etc under a lot of similar circumstances. With that said, it's really hard to judge based on the number of things you read/hear, although this guy is an actual qualified mechanic he didn't sound 100% sure of himself because he admitted he had only worked on 1 bike (he normally does heavy vehicles) so I kinda took it as more of an educated opinion.
I just went out and rode it ..... they say its advisable to be wary of the initial clutch release in case its changed dramatically from the the new plates.
Yeh I wound the fine adjustment right in before I started up the first time then went with lever play in a position that I thought was OK before starting it up and checking the transition in and out of neutral. It's still a little hard to slide in and out of neutral so I'll attack the lower adjustment a bit more and hopefully find a happy spot. Then it's time to ride again yay!!
A few laps up and down the road loosened it off a bit but I think there's still a bit of adjustment to do. I'll get onto it this weekend, will let you know how I go. Thanks for the thoughts.
So have had some problems with the new clutch being a little "clunky". So what I did was I took the pressure plate (1) off and adjusted the centre knob which pushes the pressure plate "out" (ie away from the engine). I wound it to a spot where the pressure plate with no springs (3) and the outside nut (4) attached would sit flush against the most external plate (2). I also wound the knob on the clutch cable/lever all the way in. The "knob" (first photo below) sits in behind the pressure plate and protrudes through, the nut attaches to the thread on the end. 7 Nm torque on the spring bolts. Now the clutch has quite a smooth action and glides through the gears quite well. Difference at the bottom end is very noticeable.
