do you have a clutch that is slipping
horrible let's go through all the possible scenarios that would cause that
to happen so first off I'm gonna cover the most common and easiest issue to fix
a miss adjusted clutch lever and cable and by the way I just ran this cable way
out of adjustment to show you guys what a slipping clutch would sound like this
bike actually doesn't have any issues with a slipping clutch what we're
looking for here is a little bit of play in the lever so if you hold tension to
the cable here pull it out a little bit and then work the cable and the lever
back and forth you'll be able to feel a little bit of movement there so if you
don't have any movement here the clutch will be partially engaged and it'll be
slipping like you heard in the video and that'll burn up the clutch plates pretty
quick too most clutch lovers should have an adjuster like this one so to tighten
up the tension you spin it out and I'll show you where I was at before when I
was riding it in the video there I had it turned all the way out and there was
just no movement whatsoever just locks solid you can see there's no no play in
it whatsoever and then to loosen up the attention you either spin it backwards
if you have a cable that is really loose and has a ton of movement in it you
won't be able to engage the clutch very well so that's adjusted all the way in
and now you can see how much play there is there when you have this much play
it's gonna be really difficult to engage the clutch and that usually happens when
the clutch plates start wearing or the clutch gets hot during the middle of a
moto so when you're out riding and you feel that the lever is losing its
firmness like this just give the adjuster a few clicks forward usually
most guys will go over a jump and just roll it forward with their hand like
that and then to try to get to the position where you're most comfortable
and for me it's right there I'm gonna pull off this little cover here and show
you exactly how much play I'll run in my cable
all right this is the amount of free play that I run in my cable just holding
tension on the cable and work in the cable and lever apart from each other
so there should be about the width of a quarter or width of a coin here between
the perch and the lever a miss adjust that clutch lever and cable is
definitely the most frequent issue I see that leads to a slipping clutch so
definitely check that out before you look into anything else and it's super
simple to do by the way I would definitely recommend snaggin one of
these works connection levers and perches best lever that money can buy
they work super smooth and it's really easy to stay on top of cable free play
with this adjuster here I'll put the link to where i bought mine down below
the next possible cause we're going to check into is the gear oil so obviously
you want a fresh clean oil in there and something that's safe to use with wet
clutches and is a quality oil as well the giro oil I've been using lately is
this Maxima MTL and it says right on it wet clutch approved so I've been using
80 weight for men 125 and I've been loving this stuff so far so if you're
having issues with your clutch slipping never a bad idea to change out your gear
oil for something fresh in quality and this bike needs an oil change anyways I
changed my oil about every four to five rides which equates anywhere from eight
to 12 hours of ride time
now with a quality product like maxima MTL in there there should be no
questions regarding the oil so the next issue I'm gonna check into is worn-out
clutch plates it's pretty common but requires a bit of disassembly now I
could have done this when the oil was drained out of the bike but I figured
I'd show you guys how to do it without draining your oil so we're gonna lay the
bike on its left side turn the fuel off first of course and then remove the
clutch cover as you can see the rear brake pedal is in the way of a few bolts
on this clutch cover so how we're gonna get around that is by pushing down the
rear brake caliper and that'll free up some space so we can push down the brake
pedal and then lock it down by putting something in the swingarm pivot bolt
sure a lot of you guys have seen this tools throughout my videos what it is is
a ASV y handle they call it just use those quarter-inch sockets here so I've
got an 8 mil a 10 mil and a 12 millimeter on it so the most common size
is on a dirt bike super handy to have I'll put the link to where I bought it
down in the description these are the clutch plates right here
all those plates you see stacked up down inside of there to get to them working
out to remove these five bolts which hold on the clutch springs and clutch
pressure plate and you'll definitely want to remove these five bolts in an
even pattern
now it's as simple as just lifting the pressure plate off of the clutch so now
we have full access to the clutch plates and how I'll pull them up is by using
this 90-degree pick and getting under the plates at the very bottom here so a
little tug will break them loose there's usually some section there with the oil
and that is the entire clutch pack being removed at once and the reason for
pulling these out is the measure the plates and look for signs of wear or
heat distortion while have the clutch apart it's a great time to check out the
other clutch components for wear so really common wear item here is the
clutch basket over time the fingers here on the basket will develop ridges and
that will lead to a really notch e clutch and shifting that isn't very
smooth so if you have ridges here on the fingers your basket needs to be filed or
just replaced the inner hub and the clutch will develop wear as well so
things we'll look out for are grooves here on the plate surface this one feels
pretty good and then the grooves here will develop some notches as well so run
a pick like I'm doing here down inside the grooves and if you feel any notching
there that hub will need to be replaced and finally the pressure plate will get
grooves here on the plate surface as well so check into that too now it's
time to measure out the clutch plates I'll be using these calipers here to
measure them so really only the fibers need to be measured the fiber plates are
the ones with the tabs here on the outside the steel plates don't really
wear that much you just want to look for signs of heat discoloration so like a
blue or purple tint to it will indicate some heat damage there so the hardest
service manual states that the minimum thickness here for the fiber plates on
this bike is 2.8 5 millimeter so I'm going to go through and measure all the
plates and make sure they meet that spec oh and before you pull your clutch pack
apart to measure it make sure all the fiber plates are the same on some bikes
will have a different inner diameter or a different thickness but on this
particular bike all the fiber plates are the same
it's not a bad idea to just keep all the plates in the same order anyways so it
looks like the majority of these so far are all measuring out at around two
point nine five millimeter so plenty of meat still left on them all these clutch
plates measured out fine I think the lowest number I saw was two point nine
four millimeter so the ready to go back in the bike and if you don't have one of
these calipers check the links down in the description to pick one up something
to keep in mind if you're replacing your clutch plates is you'll need to be
soaking them in oil for a day or two prior to installation that way the oil
has penetrated the plates and they're ready to go upon installation all right
so the order the plates need to go in is a fiber on the bottom followed up with
the steel then alternate fiber steel fiber steel and there should be a fiber
on top and a fiber on bottom all these plates will need to go in individually
can't just set them all in like we did upon disassembly
so for you guys that haven't torn into a clutch before I'm gonna give you a
little overview of how it works so watch this little pin here as I pull in the
clutch lever up on the handlebars so when I'm pulling in the clutch lever
this pin is pushing out the pressure plate against the pressure of the clutch
Springs and in turn that allows the clutch place to separate from each other
and what that does is it basically disconnects the engine from the ROO
wheel so you say you pull in the clutch you're not allowing the power to get to
the reel and then on the other side of things when the clutch lever is all the
way out all these plates are being pushed down by the clutch springs
you know the springs that are in here and they lock together and so that
essentially locks the rear wheel and the engine together and delivers power from
the engine to the rear wheel so you can imagine like once these plates wear out
they don't have as much friction which is why they're called friction plates
and the the power isn't distributed to the rear wheel as efficiently so you
have a clutch that's slipping and then going back to the cable and lever adjust
'men up on the handlebars if you don't have any FreePlay they're basically what
that's doing is pushing up on the pressure plate slightly and allowing a
little gap here in the plates so basically engage in the clutch a little
bit and that is gonna wear out the fiber here on the fiber plates pretty quickly
so I hope all that makes sense for you guys the easiest way to explain it is
when you pull the clutch lever the clutch plates basically separate from
each other and disconnect the engine from the ROO wheel and then when you let
the clutch lever out the clutch plates go together and lock together because
they're you know have friction or these are meant to create friction and that
connects the engine with rear wheel that's the easiest way I can explain it
now I'm going to pop the pressure plate back into place one more thing to
measure before putting this clutch back together or the clutch Springs so the
service manual specifies 35 millimeters as the minimum free
length here so all these measure out at about thirty five point two to thirty
five point three millimeter so they're still within spec and now I can put them
in the bike and again these bolts need to be tightened evenly now I'm going to
set the torque on these bolts the spec is seven foot pounds so not really a ton
of torque so to lock the engine I'm gonna reach underneath and put the bike
into gear and this should allow me to torque these bolts all right there we go
clicked into gear and I should be able to torque these bolts pretty easily now
so as you can imagine as you're torquing it's gonna move the rear wheel a little
bit so you may have to hold the root wheel into place as you're torquing down
these bolts
so once again you want to torque them in an even pattern so like a star pattern
here that's what I'm using all right they're all torqued
time to slap on the cover and then for the last step just pull out the
screwdriver and don't forget to pump back up your bread crusher that is it
for checking over all the clutch components pretty simple deal now let's
take it for a little test burn and see how things shake out
I hope you guys enjoyed the video and possibly learned a thing or two this one
was actually a ton of fun to shoot if you'd like to see more videos like this
support the channel by shopping over at primum XCOM i've got hats t-shirts
stickers and a few cleaning products over there as well I will see you all in
the next video take care