New Clutch Mod

[Thumper426]

A'ight.. I finally put in my 01 parts.. combined with a Barnett CF 2000 clutch pack..

deeeeaaanmmm.. smooth as silk..

BUT!!!! not happy with it.. with a brand new motion pro cable, all new parts, inspection of actuator arm and everthing.. I had lil to no adjustment left and it seemed to not disengage completely. What I found is that the arm the cable attaches to was so close to the end of the cable that it would bunch up and not pull far enough. That made me pull the arm out and check for wear on it.. everything looked brand new, even after 4 years of use and no clutch change in the bike.. everything looked spotless. No basket damage or anything. Went ahead with upgrade, and fresh clutch. But that didn't help the throw problem.

So.. after more thinking, and investigation, my friend and I discovered that if we cut the weld off that held the arm to the rod, we could rotate the arm a little, and re-weld it at a position that would allow better leverage and adjustment room.

Well.. a lil grinding later, a lil welding after that and voila.. one snappy smooth clutch feel that is noticably lighter than with out the rotation. I rotated the arm on the shaft about 3/8" towards the rear of the bike at the point when it engaged the long clutch push rod.

Now I can very easily control the clutch release and feather it as needed. Really take advantage of the 01 upgrade. Now my only complaint is the ARC lever has to aggresive of a dog leg in it, so the lever ends up closer to the bar than I like at the engagement point. A lil heat, and carefull bending and I can reshape that I think. But mechanicaly, the clutch feels nice now, rides nice around my street. Still need to test it in the dirt.

Basically I just have the actuator arm a bit more room to move by adding some throw to it.

The combo also made it so that I can finally start the bike in gear with the clutch in. I could never do that with the 00 clutch. The 01 upgrade would allow it, but I had all the adjustment maxed out to get it to disengage enough to permit it. Much better now.

That's all..

tools needed..

4" grinder
Sharpie
MIG welder

and tools needed to pull push rod outta the clutch to get the arm out.

Will post on overall results.. good or bad once I can get it into the dirt and hills. Not this weekend.. but maybe next if I am not workin' on my R/T trans swap.


ps.. I wasn't smart enough to take pics while we were doing this. We just ripped it apart, ground it, rotated it, welded it.. then realized.. hmm.. pics woulda been nice.. DOHH!!

[cowboyona426]

Interesting arm mod, got any pics?

[Thumper426]

not yet.. found myself on a plane back to Kauai for work.. haven't gotten to play with it, or take pics.. wasn't smart enough to take pics while I was tweaking.. to much fun with the grinder at the time! LOL

Basically pull your clutch in though and look at how close to the end of the cable it ends up.. mine was either hitting the cable, or damn close to it where the rubber benched up hard. Had a new cable, new clutch, new everything except actuator arm, and it didn't look worn. So now with it pulled in it is about 1/4" or so away from the end of the cable and doesn't bunch up the rubber. Seems to pull smoother as well, more like my friends KX250 does. I can take pics of it relaxed, as well as pulled in.

Oh.. and I can start the bike in gear now easily with the clutch in!!! hehe.. never could before.