El Guero
V4 *****
I'd posted in some other thread about how I was changing my clutch springs and some folks asked how to do it, so here I am obliging.
This all started with my clutch. It never slips, but after the bike warms up the bike will shudder when you let the clutch out in first gear. It didn't happen when the bike was relatively cool or if you really rode the clutch out. The bike has about 44k on it. I eventually decided it was probably the clutch springs and it has always got on my nerves, so I decided to have a go at it.
Parts you'll need: (I didn't have all of these at first so I'll save you the trouble)
1 gallon of your favorite oil
1 oil filter
1 crush washer, if you like
5 clutch springs (22401-MT3-000)
1 clutch cover gasket (11342-MY3-000)
1 slave cylinder gasket (22862-MW7-650) *this one is a maybe
2 exhaust gasket (18291-MN4-920)
1 muffler gasket (18392-MK4-000)
The service manual does a pretty good job of explaining what to do. Pull the bags, seat, side covers, cowl, right side service cover, right side pocket, lower fairing, and right middle fairing. While you are doing this you are going to want to drain the engine oil out. When I did it, I went ahead and replaced the crush washer and oil filter for good luck.
When you get that far, you start to get to the hard part. Pull the crash bar and the heat shield on the exhaust. You will now need to remove the right side header as it occludes the clutch cover. Removing the pipes from the cylinder head is simple enough. The hard part is removing it from the collector. At first I thought it was rusted on there but good - I spent 2 days PB-Blasting it and then heating it with a blowtorch. What finally got it off was a lot of twisting. All of the heat and lube may have helped, but basically I had to just twist it a lot harder than I was comfortable with until it finally came off. Trying to lever it forward didn't do anything... Twist the top ends of the pipe until they clear the PAIR tubes, and then just keep going at it until it comes off. What happens is that the muffler gasket more or less melts into place.
If you get this far this is what you'll see:
Next you need to remove the clutch cover. There is a catch to this - I ordered a replacement for my clutch cover gasket since it is 16 years old. When I pulled the cover, the gasket stayed intact. I was about to reuse it, but after all the bull
with the exhaust I decided I'd really rather it didn't leak. Problem is, the gasket was still stuck to the cover pretty damn good, and dangling between the engine and the front wheel is not a good place to scrape a gasket. So, I also removed the slave cylinder from the clutch cover. I didn't need to bleed the clutch or anything, but I did have to replace the gasket under the slave cylinder as well. You may be able to get away without doing this but I couldn't.
When you get the clutch cover off, you'll see this:
To change the springs, all you have to do is undo those 5 gold-colored bolts, remove that plate, remove the old springs, replace them with new springs, and then put the whole thing back together. This was the easiest part of the whole job. For you super ST-nerds, I didn't measure my old clutch springs, but they were visibly shorter than the new ones by about 1.5 to 2 mm as far as I reckon.
To finish, just put everything back together, replacing gaskets as you go. This would have been a pretty simple job if I'd had all of the gaskets and the exhaust came off easier. Can't tell if it fixed my shuddering bike yet, but I guess I'll have eliminated one more possible cause if it does
:
This all started with my clutch. It never slips, but after the bike warms up the bike will shudder when you let the clutch out in first gear. It didn't happen when the bike was relatively cool or if you really rode the clutch out. The bike has about 44k on it. I eventually decided it was probably the clutch springs and it has always got on my nerves, so I decided to have a go at it.
Parts you'll need: (I didn't have all of these at first so I'll save you the trouble)
1 gallon of your favorite oil
1 oil filter
1 crush washer, if you like
5 clutch springs (22401-MT3-000)
1 clutch cover gasket (11342-MY3-000)
1 slave cylinder gasket (22862-MW7-650) *this one is a maybe
2 exhaust gasket (18291-MN4-920)
1 muffler gasket (18392-MK4-000)
The service manual does a pretty good job of explaining what to do. Pull the bags, seat, side covers, cowl, right side service cover, right side pocket, lower fairing, and right middle fairing. While you are doing this you are going to want to drain the engine oil out. When I did it, I went ahead and replaced the crush washer and oil filter for good luck.
When you get that far, you start to get to the hard part. Pull the crash bar and the heat shield on the exhaust. You will now need to remove the right side header as it occludes the clutch cover. Removing the pipes from the cylinder head is simple enough. The hard part is removing it from the collector. At first I thought it was rusted on there but good - I spent 2 days PB-Blasting it and then heating it with a blowtorch. What finally got it off was a lot of twisting. All of the heat and lube may have helped, but basically I had to just twist it a lot harder than I was comfortable with until it finally came off. Trying to lever it forward didn't do anything... Twist the top ends of the pipe until they clear the PAIR tubes, and then just keep going at it until it comes off. What happens is that the muffler gasket more or less melts into place.
If you get this far this is what you'll see:
Next you need to remove the clutch cover. There is a catch to this - I ordered a replacement for my clutch cover gasket since it is 16 years old. When I pulled the cover, the gasket stayed intact. I was about to reuse it, but after all the bull
with the exhaust I decided I'd really rather it didn't leak. Problem is, the gasket was still stuck to the cover pretty damn good, and dangling between the engine and the front wheel is not a good place to scrape a gasket. So, I also removed the slave cylinder from the clutch cover. I didn't need to bleed the clutch or anything, but I did have to replace the gasket under the slave cylinder as well. You may be able to get away without doing this but I couldn't.When you get the clutch cover off, you'll see this:
To change the springs, all you have to do is undo those 5 gold-colored bolts, remove that plate, remove the old springs, replace them with new springs, and then put the whole thing back together. This was the easiest part of the whole job. For you super ST-nerds, I didn't measure my old clutch springs, but they were visibly shorter than the new ones by about 1.5 to 2 mm as far as I reckon.
To finish, just put everything back together, replacing gaskets as you go. This would have been a pretty simple job if I'd had all of the gaskets and the exhaust came off easier. Can't tell if it fixed my shuddering bike yet, but I guess I'll have eliminated one more possible cause if it does
:
