[darnold87]

My clutch grabs at the last moment... I've tried adjusting it and no luck. So I'm thinking it needs the clutch serviced.

My bike is an '89 w/ 3900 miles.

Does anyone have pics or information they'd be willing to share on this. I've never done a clutch on a bike. I don't know how to tell if it truly needs replacing once I get in there.

Any suggestions would be greatly apprecitated.

I will be reading the shop manuals to get prepared.

I'll be gathering parts over the next month and will takes pics as this proceeds...

Thanks for any help you may provide!

 

[Camelrider]

A few weeksago I had the clutch apart and made a picture of it.

Obviously you will have to take off the kick starter and the cranck case cover,a new cranck case gasket could be nice to have handy.

On the clutch you will have to remove the 4 bolts that hold the clutch springs and you can slide out the clutch plates to inspect/replace them.

There is no need to remove the small bolt that you see in the middle of the clutch.

Maybe the clutch springs need replacement, I would not know.

Take care to put everything back together in the proper order.

More pictures in this thread: http://tw200forum.com/index.php?/topic/351-another-rear-swing-stretch/

My clutch is still fine after more than 70,000 km. Sometimes the lack of use/milage can cause more wear then regular riding the bike.

I hope this will be of some help to you.

Have fun, Johan

 

[dalsco]

Hey darlnold, I'm having the same problem after taking a very difficult trail on the deer hunt. (lots of clutch slipping to keep it from dying) so what have you found out. did you replace it? how hard was it? Thanks

 

[darnold87]

Hey darlnold, I'm having the same problem after taking a very difficult trail on the deer hunt. (lots of clutch slipping to keep it from dying) so what have you found out. did you replace it? how hard was it? Thanks

I got lucky... the return spring on the bottom of the clutch cable (where it goes into the engine case) had got misaligned. I re-aligned it and adjusted the clutch lever and it was back to normal... nice and smooth and grabbing at half of a pull on the clutch lever...

 

[smthng]

I got lucky... the return spring on the bottom of the clutch cable (where it goes into the engine case) had got misaligned. I re-aligned it and adjusted the clutch lever and it was back to normal... nice and smooth and grabbing at half of a pull on the clutch lever...

I've heard a few people had to deal with the clutch springs/adjuster, so it's apparently fairly common. If anyone else needs pictures of actual clutch plates, let me know and I can dig mine out. I had the same behavior when I got my TW with 1500 miles on it, so I pulled the plates and they were pretty close to new. Mine show a little bit of scoring on the teeth, but otherwise look good. I wasted a lot of time and buggered up a gasket before I found out about the cable adjuster spring issue. :S

 

[Sly Fox]

Only 3900 miles? That's not a lot to wear the friction plates out.

A lot of problems are caused by bad adjustment, either too much play or too much pressure on the thrust bearing.

I would take the clutch apart and measure the friction plates, see manual for tolerence.

Have a look at the pressure plates, put them on a surface plate and check for warping.

If it looks ok, soak the friction plates over night in new engine oil and refit with new heavy duty springs.

I work at at motorcycle school and the bikes get a huge amount of clutch abuse.

Most problems are solved with a re-oil, better springs and correct adjustment.

 

[elime]

If exterior spring and adjustments are all OK, before taking it all apart try changing the oil and using some of the high dollar stuff. Give it sometime and maybe that will cure things. It did on mine. Tony

 

[qwerty]

If you use an auto oil labeled "Energy Conserving" or "Fuel Saving" or "High Efficiency" the oil has additives that will make a TW clutch slip. Switch to a dedicated motorcycle oil for 4-stroke engines with wet clutches. Any oil labeled "Low Polluting" or similar lacks the additives necessary to properly lubricate solid followers, which TWs have.



Vehicles have such specialized requirements these days the right oil for the vehicle is necessary. Recent reformulations of the venerated heavy duty diesel oils that have served us riders of bikes with wet clutches so well for many years have been reformulated and no longer meet our needs. There are even different oils for bikes with combined sumps (like ours), bikes with separate sumps with wet clutches (V-Twin oils), and bikes with dry clutches.



For TWs, Mobile Racing 4T is a good synthetic. Valvoline Motorcycle 4 Stroke is a good choice of dyno oil. Castrol sells a line of 5 different motorcycle oils, ranging from dyno to full synthetic. There are others.

 

[Rainman]

Does the clutch return spring ever wear out? Has anyone ever had theirs break?

 

[Till Death Dual Us Sport™]

Mine started feeling weird today in 2nd gear. 2015 with about 2,800 miles. I'm going to do an oil change first, as it does look pretty black. Hopefully that does the trick. All of this clutch stuff is a little overwhelming at first.