Burnt clutch?

Yesterday, I took my WRR for its second dirt excursion, at Metcalf OHV park near San Jose.

I was having a good time, until I suddenly I wasn't. I think I toasted my clutch:

I'd stopped to read signs and decide which fork in the trail to take, but my stopping point was partway up a steepish uphill, and I ended up dropping the bike due to bad footing. Now I had to get going again, on an uphill slope. I was really rough with the clutch trying to get the bike rolling again (the situation wasn't helped by the fact that for the first few attempts the bike was in second without my realizing it). Eventually I simply stopped getting power to the wheels -- the bike acted like the clutch is pulled in regardless of lever position. I didn't smell any of the stink that I've heard a burnt clutch will put off, but it was a windy day. I hoped it was just overheating, and sat around for about 45 minutes getting sunburned and waiting for it to cool off, but after that time, still no dice. Ended up having to walk to the ranger station and have them drive out in a pickup to extract the bike, and then had to get a tow to get the bike home.

(In retrospect I should have turned the bike around and gotten it onto flat ground to get moving again and get up to speed for the climb. But the trails at this park are all one-way and it didn't occur to me to go the wrong direction, despite the fact that there was plenty of visibility that would allow me and any other riders to avoid a collision. Also, now I'm getting why most riders end up gearing down this bike.)

I'm going to drain the oil and inspect it this afternoon, and then probably open it up and see what I can find; I'm hoping that it's *just* a burnt clutch. Is it possible to burn a clutch out in a single incident like this? (Though of course I was slipping the clutch a lot all day since my bike still has stock gearing.) Anything else I should be looking for?

It's possible you smoked out the clutch. 2nd gear on a steep hill could easily do that.

1st thing to check is lever free play. Before you go replacing stuff, adjust the mating parts to account for the wear.

Even if you took half of the clutch life away... you could still get 20-30K miles out of it.

Arkmage wrote:

1st thing to check is lever free play. Before you go replacing stuff, adjust the mating parts to account for the wear.

Even if you took half of the clutch life away... you could still get 20-30K miles out of it.

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll check that before I drain the oil. Though even if I only partly cooked it and can get it working by adjusting free play, I'm guessing I should still change the oil to get the friction plate debris out of there?

Most certainly yes... change the oil regardless.

Tried adjusting the free play all the way to the max. Still no joy.

Drained the oil. It was a grey color I've never seen before, and smelled funny.

Opened up the clutch. The two innermost friction plates are brown and have some blocks of friction material left. The other 5 are black and nearly smooth. Everything else looks okay -- no gouges in the basket. So I think I'm probably good to go once I replace the plates and springs.

Hopefully one of the local shops has the replacements I need in stock and I can get rolling again quickly. Going to put some fresh oil in it, run it for around 30 miles, then change the oil again, to try to flush out any of the bits of friction material still in there.

Thanks for the advice. Glad I didn't just take it to the shop. I don't think a clutch burnt out by my own idiocy would be covered under warranty, and anyways I'd rather be able to do as much of my own wrenching as possible.

you can inspect/modify your clutch without draining any oil, just on the kickstand....remove the cover carefully (watch for the gasket) and replace/remove appropriate parts....I've had to do it a few times and just got tired of draining the oil...

Replaced all the plates and springs today. I have a working bike again.