One last hoorah....

Right then..... As well documented on here I have had issues with clutch drag/sticking and various other issues on my 2011 ABS Speed Triple

I could live with a few issues but not all of them hence one last try to sort out the clutch.

I bought a whole 2nd hand clutch (outer basket, plates, inner hub, pressure plate, springs, bolts, pull rod)

On another forum I read some people had there basket replaced by Triumph under warranty for a sticking clutch so thought it was worth one last try.

My timeline is...

Bought bike...
Clutch started dragging and occasionally sticking...
Changed oil to Silkolene to try and improve to no avail...
Noticed steels were a bit blue so replaced steels (Barnett) and fibres (EBC) as I was informed the oil oil could still be present in the old clutch fibres...
Added updated Triumph clutch pin...
Clutch started dragging and sticking all the time too...
Pissed about with oil level and cable tension...

After stripping it countless times I came to the conclusion it is the oil not clearing from the plates making them drag and a lot of oil lingering around the inner most plates making it stick when parked for any time.

While doing the clutch swap I thought I would swap the detent arm to the newer version too, my bike had some weird setup with the spring for the detent arm over the top where as the later engines and Speed R had a normal setup.

They obviously don't update stuff unless the older one had an issue so for the cost I thought id do it and see if it improves the clonky gearchange any too.

Time for some pics....Apologies they are a bit crap....Did it in my tiny garage by the light of a 40w energy saving bulb as it was raining ha ha ha


Removed case covers.....bit of oil on the clutch




Checked old springs for equal length to ensure pressure plate pulling even



Pressure plate removed, some oil inside the hub and wet plates (ooh er missus)



All but one plates removed and quite a bit of oil present at the bottom of the hub/basket



Last plate removed dripping in oil (bike has been sat since Thursday night 10pm)


Thought id check the backlash gear was doing its job while in here...looks to be



Time to remove the hub and basket with my new clutch tool



Anyone fancy some sticky plate action



Some oil present in the basket when removed



Basket and hub removed, notice old detent arm with spring going over the top



New detent arm fitted with normal spring setup....Older spring was very weak compared to the newer one, easily stretched by two fingers new one takes lot of force to move

 

Thought id check the stack height before fitting the other clutch plates

Workshop manual says max limit is 50.37mm as you can see it was at the limit give or take a bit of tolerance from my tools/measuring



Swapped out a 2mm steel for a 1.6mm steel, not exactly .4mm less as the 2mm aren't 2mm and the 1.6 aren't 1.6mm



Fitted the basket and hub...Just waiting for my mate to get home so I can borrow his torque wrench to tighten the hub nut



While waiting I did notice something that may be of consequence, note the pad size and drain slot of the EBC plates



And the pad and drain slot size of the OEM ones



I'm hoping this may be the issue why the clutch started sticking after fitting the EBC plates

 

Borrowed my mates torque wrench, tightened the hub nut (150nm) checked the springs for equal length, threw the plates in ( in the order the workshop manual says, bar the swapped 2mm) buttoned it all up and I'll give it a ride tomorrow !

Yes I did remove my drill bit/backlash gear set tool too

 

Yeah springs were all OK...

Not had a chance to ride it yet, too busy today

I did get it out on the drive and start it up

Got on and clicked it into gear and I didn't even get the usual clonk into first and could find gears and neutral up and down

To be fair even before the clutch got worse over a week after cleaning as it got coated in more and more oil so i'll know for sure by the end of the week !

 

Ha ha cheers buddy

 

Cheers boys....Fingers crossed indeed !

 

Ha ha cheers mate....

It must be me and clutches have an attraction as I did a write up on modifying when I had my Ducati...

http://ducatiforum.co.uk/threads/quiet-clutch-mod-done-edited.45659/#post-800957

 

Touch wood it's looking OK at the minute...

Riding to work clutch was ace, more progressive bite, can feel the bike coast when clutch lever in whereas before I'd pull the lever and the bike would slow a bit with the drag

Also I could get neutral after the ride to work while sat still !

Proper test was when the ride home came, had the very slightest bit of stick when I started it up to come home but as soon as it was started I could get gears and neutral with no dragging.

Gearchange felt much much better, still had the odd rough gearchange but that was more me dropping it into second at the wrong revs or first while still moving.

The rough gearchanges were normal gearbox sound somewhere between a click and a clonk, nothing like the 'smash, oh fook is that the transmission coming through the cases ?' that every downchange was...

I'd hope it was the new detent arm helping with the gearchange as there feels a bit of resistant to the gear lever now....not too much but you can feel it doing something when before it was like a spoon in a bowl of rice pudding and the only feeling was the smash as it hit full travel and slammed another 2 gears together.

To be honest my old detent spring didn't feel strong enough to do anything of significance....

Hopefully by Friday I'll have a better idea if it's gonna stay the same !