Friday 21 February 2014

Clutch

Having got the brake shoes back, I want to finish off a couple of cables that are cluttering up the workshop, before starting on the cylinder head. One of those is the clutch cable, and I would like to do a dry run of the clutch build. It's a dry run, beacause I want to spin the engine on the power drill using the crankshaft shock absorber nut, and I don't have the oil pump or any of the timing gear ready yet - because the head is not fitted.

So today I will fit the clutch temporarily, to have a look. First up is the basket, fitted over the cage & needle rollers. It's retained with new bolts and lock washer I bought from John Budgen.

Next up is the stack of plates and the clutch centre, preceeded by the final thrust washer. First problem appears - the new clutch centre nut is not happy on the gearbox mainshaft thread - though the old one still fits. This is the whole point of a dry build!

Push rod fitted!

The pressure plate comes next, followed by the cups, springs and the nuts. And the first outing for the clutch spring screwdriver I made a couple of years ago. Works fine!


The clutch operates very nicely using the arm on the other end of the gearbox, and the pushrod adjuster is screwed almost right in. Odd I think, the plates are in good shape but not wholly unworn. Most of them came from John Mitchell of the AOMCC. Maybe the pushrod is too short or there is a ball missing? The ball is certainly present in the adjuster cup...

1 comment:

  1. The rod itself in my dads gearbox is 13 inches or 33 cm long. Might help you to check to see if it's the rod or if it's the plate thickness or possibly even the spring tension on the clutch, the springs on my dads were fairly well compressed when I took it off. Not sure if this helps much or not but I figured it should do you some good.

    Also I couldn't help but notice that the paint on your foot begs looks a bit rough and flaked off, I've already done work on the ones on my dads by using a wire brush to take them down to bare metal and we are going to paint them here soon, no need for a durable paint on them as they are not only easy to take off but are in a fairly well protected location on the bike. Might be something you may consider doing some time down the road.

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