Suck It Clutch Pack!!! I can't have a slipping clutch that progressively gets worse every time I ride. So last night before I went to bed I pulled the bike up on my front step and yanked the primary cover again. Good news is, with the new rear set controls I don't have to remove anything extra to get the cover off because there is nothing in the way now.
Also discovered that when pulling the clutch pack apart that if I leave the center stud with the scissor adjuster on holding the 2 pressure plates together, they stay together making assembly and disassembly a lot faster and easier. The friction plates didn't appear to be glazed so I just cleaned them up good. The steel plates and pressure plate on the other hand? Well, they got a real good work over. I took a 50 grit 3" grinding disc attached to my drill to them. At moderate speed and pressure, I quickly started going over all the contact surfaces of the steel plates. I made 2 passes on each surface, and then went over the pressure plate as well. Even with my oily latex gloves on I could feel my fingers grabbing roughly on the new surfaces. I didn't use a lot of pressure when doing this because I wasn't actually trying to remove any metal, I was just trying to score the surface so that they would grab the friction plates when engaged.
I also read on Hitchcocks clutch tech page that if the slots in the basket and/or the tabs on the friction plates have any burrs in them that it can cause the plates to not seat properly and to file them down. The plates were fine but there were a few burrs in the basket so I took another grinding disc and folded it in half and used that to remove the bulk of the burrs and clean up the slots. The results? The first time I let the clutch out it started grabbing almost immediately with the lever about half way out and then engaged quite firmly. I zig zagged thru the neighborhood and was ecstatic at how much faster the bike accelerates now. I always thought that my bike was fast and I
knew there was some slip before, but when I launched from the stoplight on the main drag before getting back home, I damn near red lined 3rd gear before I got to the next stoplight!
It always sounded like a beast, but it is
DEFINITELY accelerating much faster than it ever has before.
EVER. Like mind boggling faster. Now lets hope that it stays this way and doesn't start slipping again. I have a feeling that it won't after what I did to it last night. Also, Hitchcocks states on that tech page that the use of
ANY type of ATF is the recommended fluid type. So I filled it back up with the Castrol Import AFT which is a semi synthetic oil and what I seemed to have the best luck with before.
Scottie J