Article [13] ST1300 - Clutch Replacement

crazykz

R.I.P. - 2012/06/16
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Disassembly:
So rip off the tupperware and the front wheel/fender. That just makes it easier to work in there.

The drain and remove the radiator. Be careful with the hoses to not damage them but you want to get them out of the way to pull the cover and while you're doing the clean up work.

Now clean the thing up as best you can to keep dirt, etc. out of the engine once you pull the cover off.

You want to start to break all the bolts loose at the same time but once they are broken loose remove the water pump cover. Use a 6-point 8mm socket. We had a 12 point that almost rounded off one of the bolts.

Clean up all the crap, dirt, etc.

There's a cleaned up version before we removed the cover.

Here was the trick to breaking the cover loose. We removed all the bolts and then went all over the cover with rubber mallets seeing if we could break it loose. Once that failed we found a ridge on the bottom left corner of the cover. We used a ratchet extension and a rubber mallet to break it loose. Be careful to not pop the cover all the way off, just break it loose.

This shows the right side where the water prop goes through the case. There axle of the prop goes into a whole in the middle of a chained gear. If you pull the cover you risk having the gear fall out and putting it back might be a pain.

Stick a steel ruler in are more of an angle so that the ruler is going further back into the engine. If you can slide it along the water prop shaft you'll be in a position to keep the little gear from coming off. (thanks Buber)

This shows what you have when you have the cover removed.


Clean up was a big part of this job. We covered up things as best we could to keep dirt out of the engine. I let the gasket soak for a day with gasket remover but there's probably better ways to remove it. However I think the gasket remover made it easy to remove the gasket with a razor blade (thanks Scooter). There's other ways but Scott found a way to scrape it in a way that the blade did not cut into the aluminum. A brass brush works will but those types of things make a big mess and you don't want that crap in the engine. It's a pain but I think Scooter did a great job.

Clean out the Valley drain. Mine was full of sand. Make me wonder what my alternator looks like. It's probably from hours of riding on snowmobile trails. Notice the angle of the pick I was using. That's where the hole is up to the V in the engine.

Here's a shot after Scooter cleaned everything off.

We removed the rubber gasket from the water pump cover and cleaned the corrosion off with a brass brush. Simple Green is a great cleaner for grease and dirt. Available at Wally World, etc.

Removing the old clutch is as simple as removing the six bolts. We removed all of the plates and springs and measured them. There is only one, as far as we can tell, friction plate that is different than the rest and it's obvious because it has a bigger ID. It's the bottom friction plate in the basket. There are two other thing rings (forget the names) that actually sit inside the last friction plate. The flat one goes in the bottom and the angled one sits on top of that one. The two rings and the larger ID friction plate sits in the bottom all happy together.

Here are the measurements of the friction plates and the springs. We had plates and springs that were out of spec. I did try to ride the bike two up with the clutch slipping so a lot of that may have been in trying to get it home which failed.

Here's one shot of it back together.

Here's another one showing the gasket and guides in place. There are two small guides on the cover and two large ones with new O-Rings for the coolant ports. All we used was a little Honda bond where the cases come together in the middle (there's a pic in the manual) to hold the gasket in place and seal it up. The cover will almost go on but you'll need to play with the water prop so that it goes back into that gear on the left side. It should NOT turn when the cover is on correctly. If it turns you don't have it in there so keep trying. The cover slammed right on once we had the guides lined up and the water pump shaft in the right spot.


Overall not a hard job but I really liked having Scott there to lend a hand. He found the ridge to knock the cover loose and removed the gasket which I was dreading. The hardest part is getting in there to do it.

I do a good amount of two up riding and a lot of interstate. I also use the friction zone to control the bike and doing rallies adds to that. I also took a class a few weeks ago where we did nothing but friction zone slow control stuff. All of that combined probably shorten the life of the clutch. My last one was at 160K and was still on the original clutch.

Hope all this helps and THANKS for everyone's help.

Curt
 

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Joined
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Great post!

I wonder why Honda didn't design the cover differently; separate cover for the clutch only. Sure would make it a quicker job.

Regards,

Keith
 

Papa

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Thanks for the write up and pix! RIP
 
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Great write up and pictures. A few invaluable tips in there too !

Does seems strange that the clutch isn't housed behind its own cover, as on 99% of other models !

God knows why the manual states the engine has to be removed.................maybe they want to make more money, come service time ???!!! They charge the equivalent of $70/hour over here !!

Rob;)
 
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Do you mind if i use this How To on our forum www.st1100-1300.eu.
Your writeup is great.
I'm sure we can make our forum members very happy with this item.
During the years the milage will rise and clutch replacement is a nessesary thing.

With kind regards.
Arno Plaisier, from te Netherlands
 

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Sadly, Curt passed away in 2012 due to a motorcycle accident. However, I believe he would be honored that his post helped others and would surely have approved your request so please feel free to use what you like.

Do you mind if i use this How To on our forum www.st1100-1300.eu.
Your writeup is great.
I'm sure we can make our forum members very happy with this item.
During the years the milage will rise and clutch replacement is a nessesary thing.

With kind regards.
Arno Plaisier, from te Netherlands
 
Joined
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Zeewolde, NL
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ST1300
Great article indeed - sorry to read Curt traded the temporary for the eternal!

I noticed that the crankshaft connects to the clutch via straight gear reduction (rather than a spiral gear) - could that be the source of the typical Pan whining noise by any chance??

Noot, maak jij er even een fraaie How-To van! :biker:
 
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Blrfl

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I noticed that the crankshaft connects to the clutch via straight gear reduction (rather than a spiral gear) - could that be the source of the typical Pan whining noise by any chance??
Yes, it is. There are no helical-cut gears in the ST.

--Mark
 
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Been wondering for years 'bout that! But I always figured it couldn't be gears as it's whining even when in neutral.
But if there's a reduction between engine & clutch (as shown in Curt's report) then I finally have a plausible reason! :)

Does the 1100 have the same or similar construction then?
 
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