First Drive! (and minor disaster)
nstrug - 26/7/09 at 03:59 PM
Got the plate and tax disk sorted today and after a fight with the bias bar I was on the road! Initial blat looked good, steering needs a bit of
alignment but everything else was fine. After driving an 893 Indyblade, the torque from the R1 5PW was a real revelation. The brakes work fine but
there is way too much pedal travel but I'll let the pads bed in before having another look. The Kumho V70As are brilliant - especially on the
brakes - the car just stops like it hit a wall.
There was also a huge amount of 'smoke' coming into the cockpit but investigation showed this to be steam coming from the engine breather -
it should stop when all the condensation gets driven out of the engine.
I headed back home and picked up Poppy and we went out again for a more sedate drive. After a couple of miles, I noticed that I was starting to get
clutch slip in 1st and 2nd. This got progressively worse and started to affect the higher gears too. We got to about a mile from home before we lost
all drive, with the clutch slipping even in 6th.
So I pulled over (blind bend on a sunken road with no verge whatsoever
put the hazards on and prayed while Poppy ran home to get the BMW and a tow
rope. Several emergency stops from vehicles coming up behind me later and I had a brainwave and put a rotten log in the middle of the lane round the
blind corner - that slowed them down 
Anyway, home now with a cuppa.
Soooo - I haven't got the clutch cover off yet but anyone hazard a guess what the problem might be? I have the Barnett clutch conversion with the
gold springs, Barnett friction disks and the original Yamaha clutch disks. (This is on an R1 5PW). Are the Barnett friction disks and OE clutch disks
incompatible?
Cheers,
Nick
maximill666 - 26/7/09 at 04:07 PM
Have you filled it with fully synthetic oil by any chance?
foes - 26/7/09 at 04:09 PM
Mine's filled with fully synthetic, BUT its fully synthetic BIKE oil so designed for a wet clutch and has been fine.
Its CAR oils that you can't use in a bike engine as the additives put in them aren't suitable for wet clutch systems.
nstrug - 26/7/09 at 04:13 PM
I've used 10W-40 semisynthetic (Silkolene Super 4).
Nick
phoenix42 - 26/7/09 at 04:16 PM
hi there, barnett clutch conversions come with gold springs for bikes ,and black heavy duty springs for bec .so thats not helping.
nstrug - 26/7/09 at 04:21 PM
quote:
Originally posted by phoenix42
hi there, barnett clutch conversions come with gold springs for bikes ,and black heavy duty springs for bec .so thats not helping.
Ah, ok. Mine came from Fluke with a note saying not to use the black springs as they go coilbound. I've done a couple of searches and it seems a
lot of people are using 3 gold and 3 black. Also, a lot of messages saying that the Barnett kevlar friction plates are crap and to use OE ones. Still,
I would have expected them to last longer than 3 miles!
Nick
Wheels244 - 26/7/09 at 07:20 PM
After some research and chatting to Fluke I put all six black springs in mine, running OE plates and semi synthetic oil - no problems with slip at
all.
nstrug - 27/7/09 at 08:05 AM
quote:
Originally posted by Wheels244
After some research and chatting to Fluke I put all six black springs in mine, running OE plates and semi synthetic oil - no problems with slip at
all.
I read somewhere that the OE lower clutch cable bracket was not strong enough to cope with all 6 black springs - is this untrue?
Nick
nstrug - 28/7/09 at 09:12 AM
Turned out that the clutch slipping was caused by the clutch cable having managed to tighten itself, so the clutch was partially disengaged. I have no
idea how this could have happened.
I took the clutch out anyway to have a look at the plates and they seem fine - will pick up a new gasket today and should be back on the road
tonight.
Nick