I have just managed to knacker the clutch in my Blade powered MK. It just slips and produces no drive. I have ordered a set of Kevlar friction rings and stronger springs.

Will this be enough to stop this happening again?

Cheers for any advice

Jim

Hi Jim

It depends on whether your steel rings are damaged, or if the basket itself is damaged at all. If the steels are just mildly blued, a quick rub over with a bit of wet-n-dry will sort em out. Also try putting them one at a time on a sheet of glass and look for any signs of warping. If they are warped at all, or severely blue'd, then you'll need to replace those too. If you're really unlucky and the basket endplate is severely scored, then that might even need replacing too.

Which springs/friction plates have you ordered? Hopefully not EBC springs cos they are renowned for going soft very quickly, and some say they are worse than standard springs. Best springs are possibly TTS uprated ones, about a tenner a set so pretty good value. The kevlar frictions should be OK, but again, many seem to think that standard genuine honda plates are the best.

Also, once you've replaced it all, make sure you don't over-fill the oil, as this can cause the clutch to slip as the plates cannot squeeze out all the oil. Also some have found less clutch slip when using semi syunthetic oil over fully synth, but I think this is generally only found when over-filling a tad.

cheers
Chris

Cheers Chris,

I have unfortunately ordered the EBC springs. But will be visiting TTS on Thursday so will get some of their springs.


I have not stripped the clutch out yet so I was just hoping that the plain plates would be OK

Cheers

Jim

Just to elaborate on my previous post, the EBC springs evidently aren't pre-stressed ( there is a tech word for it but I have forgotten!). Basically, when a spring is made, the first few times it gets compressed, it will shrink a little before settling down to its natural unsprung length. To compensate for this, you can make the springs a pre-determined extra length, then compress them in a cycle until they stop creeping, at which point they are hopefully the correct unsprung length needed. Evidently, this is what TTS amongst others do with the manufacture of their springs, but EBC don't, hence they quickly shrink a little and so produce less pressure.

Chris

Spoke to TTS. They reckon to stay away from the EBC friction plates and just use standard Honda with TTS springs. So back the EBC stuff goes.

Out of interest how many friction plates make up the clutch. The EBC kit had 8 and their appears to be 9 in the Haynes Honda manual. It was the last friction plate that appeared to be missing.

Cheers

Jim

depends on the bike/engine model me finks, mine as 9........go with wot chris says, iv'e had no probs since i went TTS gen honda route.........n don't overfill either, not need'd on a blade..

Same as what I've got, TTS springs and genuine Honda plates, not had any slip since I fitted em.
I think mine (a '99 engine) has 9 plates, one odd one at either end and 7 middle plates all the same.

See some of you at Brooklands

Chris

Cheers guys,

My car now has a Honda Clutch with TTS springs. The clutch has 8 friction plates in total (98 Blade) so it seems that it changed a lot

Feels better after only a short drive

Jim

Glad to here the news Jim, iv'e just had some nice sticky yoko's fitted, they will give the clutch a good testing, let you know what happens...........

That would be good, on our second car we have yoko A032R's and at the moment it has a totally standard clutch. Might not last too long

JIm

Good news about the lack of slip Jim, maybe mine only has got 8 plates then, cos mine is a '99 and I thought the clutch assembly on those two were identical. Maybe I put an extra one in just for luck lol.
BTW, I've had Yoko 032's on mine from day one and it doesn't seem to cause a problem with the clutch, so I wouldnt worry about it too much.