sticky clutch
Posted: Sat Jan 13, 2001 9:33 am
Eric, I believe what you are experiencing are "stuck" clutch plates. This usually happens when a bike has sat for some time "weeks or months" without use. What happens is that ht oil literally glues the plates together. I had a bike do this once and rode almost a half mile with the cluth pulled in before it released! That bike had been sitting for years though. Usually this problem will get better with frequent use, if not an oil change may give some relief. If it just doesn't seem to get better you may have to take the clutch plates out and clean them with solvent to get the gunk off them. In the mean time, when you start up in the morning, let the bike warm some "until the temp guage starts to move at least" then pull the clutch in and HOLD it for about 5-10 seconds. Then while still holding the clutch in "blip" the throttle fairly hard a couple times so the engine revs to about 3000 rpm's or so and then returns to idle. Just give it a quick rev, don't hold the rpm's up there. This should have the effect of shearing the stuck clutch plates apart and allow you to drop it in gear at idle as normal. Good luck! Rowdy Eric wrote:
I push the choke out, start it up, let it idle a bit and warm up,
wait til it can idle without the choke, and let it sit for a few
moments while I get my helmet and stuff on... this is about 5 or
6 minutes now to this point.
I get on the bike... pull in the clutch a few times.. shift into
first... and boom.. it stalls.
I do this about 3 more times over the course of the next 4 minutes
until finally it decides it's ready, and then it's fine for rest
of the day.
What gives?
Mike T>
A16
Las Vegas