Clutch won't disengage

[80GS1000]

So I put my clutch back together getting ready to put the GS1000 back on the road after getting the clutch hub rebuilt. Followed the factory manual and Clymer's for installation procedure on torque specs on the main clutch hub nut and the pressure plate bolts. Since the bike's been sitting for a while I coated the plates with oil as I reinstalled them. Slapped the clutch cover on with a new gasket, refilled the motor's oil and put the bike up on the paddock stand. Fired it up and found some issues - it doesn't feel like the clutch is being disengaged - the pressure at the clutch lever doesn't feel right. That and if you pull in the lever, the rear wheel will just spin and spin like the clutch isn't pulled in at all. No amount of fiddling with the cable adjustment at the clutch lever and at the crankcase will resolve it. Made sure to turn the pinion gear on the clutch cover all the way clockwise before reinstalling the cover. The kicker is that it worked fine before I took it all apart. Any ideas?

[rcp]

You said, "pressure at the clutch lever doesn't feel right".
Too light? too heavy?

Have you taken it off the stand and tried going from neutral into first with the clutch lever pulled (and front brake on!)? Does it jump or stall even though the clutch lever's pulled? I don't think you get much info from running it on the paddock stand, as there's too much transmission gear and clutch plate drag to completely isolate the rear wheel. If you do need to keep it on the stand, when you're freewheeling the rear on the paddock stand - IN NEUTRAL - does the wheel stop spinning easily when you apply a bit of pressure to the tire with your boot? Now how about in gear with the clutch lever pulled?

I've found that you don't get a good feel from the clutch until after a few minutes of actual use - I'm not sure if it's related to oil coating, or just the plates working into their final positions, or what, but I don't worry about sticking or slipping until after several minutes of use.

If it's still not working right, double check the number of plates, that you've got all the washers & bearings on the puller, and that your pinion-arm/cable adjustment gives you just a mm or so of slack at the lever pivot.

- Richard

[hampshirehog]

Are you 100% sure you engaged the clutch release rack properly - it has to slot in to the pinion. I've done this loads of times - you think I'd know better by now - it's easy done!

If you lean the bike over on the side stand you may get away with pulling the clutch cover and not spilling any oil.

[80GS1000]

You said, "pressure at the clutch lever doesn't feel right".
Too light? too heavy?

Have you taken it off the stand and tried going from neutral into first with the clutch lever pulled (and front brake on!)? Does it jump or stall even though the clutch lever's pulled? I don't think you get much info from running it on the paddock stand, as there's too much transmission gear and clutch plate drag to completely isolate the rear wheel. If you do need to keep it on the stand, when you're freewheeling the rear on the paddock stand - IN NEUTRAL - does the wheel stop spinning easily when you apply a bit of pressure to the tire with your boot? Now how about in gear with the clutch lever pulled?

I've found that you don't get a good feel from the clutch until after a few minutes of actual use - I'm not sure if it's related to oil coating, or just the plates working into their final positions, or what, but I don't worry about sticking or slipping until after several minutes of use.

If it's still not working right, double check the number of plates, that you've got all the washers & bearings on the puller, and that your pinion-arm/cable adjustment gives you just a mm or so of slack at the lever pivot.

- Richard

With the rear wheel in the air on the paddock stand, the rear wheel will come to a halt on its own when the bike's in neutral. With it in gear and the clutch pulled in, you can't stop it from spinning with your foot. If you try to stop it from spinning with the rear brake and the clutch pulled, the bike will stall. I'll take it off the stand and see if it'll stall or not with the rear tire on the ground and the clutch pulled.

Are you 100% sure you engaged the clutch release rack properly - it has to slot in to the pinion. I've done this loads of times - you think I'd know better by now - it's easy done!

If you lean the bike over on the side stand you may get away with pulling the clutch cover and not spilling any oil.

Entirely possible I messed that up. Any tips on how to make sure it's engaged as you reinstall the clutch cover?


Thanks for the help guys.

[80GS1000]

This issue is fixed. Posting this to hopefully help someone in the future with the same problem.

To fix this, first I drained the oil in the motor. The motor oil was new oil so drained it into a clean drain pan for reuse. Removed the clutch cover, removed the pressure plate by removing the clutch springs and bolts. Started to remove the clutch fiber plates and noticed that some of the fiber plates were stuck together. So I decided to soak the fibers in the oil I just drained. 3 hours later I came back and reassembled the clutch. First I installed the inner clutch hub, then installed the clutch hub nut and lock washer. Then I torqued the clutch sleeve nut to 36 ft/lbs as spec'ed in the manual and folded over the lock washer to prevent the nut from loosening. I found that you can prevent the inner clutch hub from spinning while torquing the nut by having someone stand on the rear brake pedal with the bike in gear. Then I started installing the clutch steels and fibers, starting with a fiber plate. The fibers were dripping oil from their oily bath and I dunked the steels in oil before reinstallation. Then reinstalled the pressure plate, tightening the bolts and springs progressively in a diagonal pattern and setting the final torque as spec'ed in the manual to 8 ft/lbs. Used a new clutch cover gasket to prevent oil leaks and then torqued the clutch cover bolts (got a set of stainless ones, much better than those #$#%#'ing useless phillips head case screws) to 8 ft/lbs.

After this tried to rotate the rear wheel with the clutch pulled in and the bike in gear with the bike up on a rear stand and it still wouldn't work. Refilled the oil, started the bike up in neutral with the rear wheel off the ground and then downshifted into first gear. Pulling in the clutch had 0 effect - it was like the clutch cable wasn't even hooked up. Hrmmmm. Since I'd done everything exactly by the book on the inside of the motor, started to suspect that something was amiss on the outside, like the cable not hooked up properly or something. After beating my head on the side of the bike a few times after failing to fix the issue with a cable adjustment at the handlebar and the crankcase, got the idea of take a pair of vice-grips to the pinion gear to find the engagment point of the clutch. Sure enough, with the vice grips you could turn the pinion gear clockwise and feel the spring resistance as the clutch disengaged. After turning the adjuster screw for the clutch cable all the way in on the handlebar and crankcase for maximum slack, I removed the clutch cable clamp from the cable (the part that goes on the pinion gear on the clutch cover) and positioned it at the point where you could feel the clutch be disengaged when you turned the pinion gear clockwise. After a bit of swearing, was able to reattach the clutch cable to the clamp and magically the clutch was working properly. Just remember that if the clamp goes on easy, you're doing it wrong. It's one tooth after the easy setting. With the bike up on the stand, you could downshift into first gear, pull in the clutch and the rear wheel would stop spinning.

[chef1366]

You don't need to force the lever on the pinion splines. You have more than enough adjustment on both ends of the clutch cable. Just pay attention to where the lever is on the clutch cover before taking it off.
Glad you got it sorted Paul.