The Pres Debate Shop Night:
The only way i can listen to those bums is in the background whilst doing something else.
I decided to swap out the clutch. After finding a layer of slime on the oil pump screen and attributing it to clutch plate breakdown, I ordered a new APE clutch w/springs. Removing the old clutch. I knew that it was a HP clutch of some sort, had worked fine for decades till i parked it. maybe a Barnett? Also, it was working fine in the short test runs I've made on the bike.
Upon removal i see that it was a +1 plate clutch, having 8 fiber and 7 metal plates. A fibre on each end ot the stack. Couldn't see any obvious breakdown of fibre. The new APE discs were thinner than the old Barnett (assumed) plates, so much so that i could fit another steel plate in. (2 extra steels wre supplied with the APE clutch.) I put it first, as the pressure plate surface showed a little more wear than the hub surface.
The new APE springs are obviously longer than the Barnett? springs.
But they are also much thinner wire. You can compress the new springs easily between your fingers down to the height of the shorter stouter spring. This was also true of the APE valve springs. They were longer but made of thinner wire. Either APE or someone else told me this is a newer convention for springs. So I will use them. Hopefully they will give a more progressive feel to the clutch. I had noticed on trial runs with the shorter springs that the friction point was at the end of the lever travel, and very narrow. This is a symptom of the stock clutch as well, so maybe the longer springs/thinner wire will help.
There have been many threads here about the dreaded breakage of the lifter plate. I have participated in these threads, and this gives me the chance to confirm my advice. Basically the pressure plate (piece with 4 posts) can only fit into the hub in 2 out of 4 positions. So, upon removal I recommend marking the top of a post and the area adjacent to it on the hub.
Right
Wrong
But one thing I noticed that hasn't been discussed (that i remember) and that is even if you have the hub/pressure plate alignment proper, once installed the PP can fall back into the cage, disengaging from its splines. Then if you go to tighten up the lifter plate it would suredly break.
A fix I know has been discussed, but I'll repeat is to run 2 bolts into the posts. You can then use them to pull the pressure plate into engagment. Then remove the bolts, install the lifter plate and thread 2 bolts down by hand till firm.
Pressure plate having dropped back into the cage.
With the center nut tight, you should be able to rattle the PP with those two bolts. If you can't then it has fallen out of engagement and is now pinned under the hub. Loosen the center nut and pull the PP back into engagement.
Anyway once everything is lined up and you're sure the splines are engaged there should be no paranoia about breaking the plate. As proof, I have tightened only 2 of the 4 bolts.
I did tighten them only one turn each at a time, but they drew up smoothly and easily. The point being the plate is plenty strong if everything is aligned properly. Then I drew up the other 2. All four bolts push the lifter plate to seat on the tops of the posts and then torque them down. I use 10ftlbs.
Final point: If you're using all the same parts it came with, this won't matter but if you're putting together a basket case or otherwise swapping parts, i discovered from one PP to the next, the depth of the threaded hole varies. And the bolts that are called for vary. So you don't want to put the long bolts in the short holes. They may bottom before the lifter plate seats. I was just messing around with 2 hubs and discovered this. So to check run the bolt you're going to use into the post to be sure it won't bottom prematurely.
Now to button it all up and get ready for a test ride.
