March 21st, 2014

Well its been an interesting couple of days. On the way into work on a pretty chilly morning, my clutch started to slip and slip really badly in the lower gears. This didn't bode well for the afternoon ride back, which indeed, was a fairly 'hazardous' affair. I really don't know why it dropped off so quickly, but that is exactly what it did and I really struggled for any kind of drive when pulling away. To keep things safe I didn't filter to the front of the queue for the lights and tried not to put myself in a position where I would have to get out of the way pretty quickly. Easier said than done. A quick call to the dealers reserved the only clutch pack they had in stock and £200 later, I had the replacement I was after.
Replacing a dry clutch is, or should be, a really easy task. Fairing off, clutch cover off, unbolt the six clutch springs, remove the pressure plate, then replace all the friction and steel plates in the right order and then bolt everything back up. 25mins max. However, for me something looked wrong.

Ignore the fact that it's absolutely filthy, but in the second and third pics about you can see that the final steel plate is almost at the end of the clutch hub (the big round serrated thing in the middle), which means there isn't as much room as there should be for the pressure plate. You can see this as all six spring caps are recessed into the pressure plate. In my experience its should look more like this.

So on the first picture you can see there is more room on the end of the hub, which, if you click on the second picture you can see that the spring caps are further out. Now I could be wrong and I could be worrying about nothing at all, but I am worried about that final steel falling off the hub when riding, which could result in all manner of problems, least of which could be a lock up sending me into the nearest solid object. I want to avoid that if I can.
I've been out on the bike a few times now; a test ride in the afternoon and to and from work today and the bike runs fine and there is frankly a savage amount of grip from the clutch. At one point I was in 2nd gear coming out of a 30mph zone into a National Speed limit and pinned it. The bike just revolved around the rear tyre, the front came up and off I shot down the road in a hail of noise and speed, much to the surprise of the bloke in the van who was tailgating me. So it clearly works.
I'm going to have a chat with a few people in the know and see what they say. The way I see it, is I need to remove one of the steels within the stack to get the amount of room I want on the hub. The stack starts with a double steel and if that there just to fill space, then there shouldn't be any negative effects by removing it. Watch this space...if you excuse the pun.