Vintage Dirt Bike Q & A

I was putting my clutch back together and have run into at least one problem maybe more. After installing the clutch outer I put the 22mm thrust washer on and noticed it rested in the groove between the notched areas on the shaft. This causes a loose fit and the thrust washer is free to spin. I Installed the clutch center, lock washer and hex nut then loaded 7 fiber and 6 metal plates, pressure plate, new springs and torqued the six bolts to Honda's specs. The second problem I found is the clutch pack is loose. I can seperate the plates with a screwdriver about an 1/8 of an inch and my clutch adjusting bolt is screwed almost all the way in before making contact with the lifting rod. It looks like there is room for a couple more plates. The clutch that came with this bike was trash (the outer was missing a couple of tines) so everything is new. Any engine savvy folks out there know what I did wrong? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

dogger

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1973 CR250M
1979 CR250R
1993 CR250R
2008 CR500R
2009 CR250R

Did you put the 25mm thrust washer on before the clutch outer?? Correct order is 25mm, clutch outer, 22mm thrust washer, clutch center, 18mm lock washer then nut. If you did, maybe the gear is caught slightly, not letting assembly slide on all the way.
And I have (at least twice ) put the pressure plate on before without turning the pressure plate center piece where flat spots are supposed to be only to find pressure plate will not put any pressure on the plates.
Hope you figure it out. Good luck.

Thanks for the response. I think you got it with the thought about the pressure plate. I took the whole assembly off and did some "test fittings" and found a small line cast on the the pressure plate and another line on the clutch center. When I mounted the pressure plate to the center with those two lines matched up, the pressure plate dropped in another 1/8" and problem solved. Now I have good clutch action and almost full use of the djusting bolt.

I scoured my Honda and Haynes manuals and didn't see any mention about matching up these lines, what a gotcha.

Thanks again for pointing me in the right direction.

dogger

_________________
1973 CR250M
1979 CR250R
1993 CR250R
2008 CR500R
2009 CR250R

Glad I could assist. This is definitely one of those things you just learn from experience or experience of others. It's definitely Not in my Honda Shop Manual, either. Boy was I frustrated the first time it happened to me. I ended up fixing it by luck. The second time it happened, I finally studied it until I figured out why it was doing it.