Well I've just bought another clutch arm and knackered it in one push! Can anyone help? Its for a ZX9 there's a little groove cut out in the arm which engages with a rod which pulls against the plates and applies pressure to the springs and which has a "top hat" on the end. The idea being that the groove engages with the top hat and pulls the rod against the springs. My arm seems to have slipped and the groove has widened. Two little notches have appeared either side. Any ideas before I have to strip it down again! I tried to take a picture but the camera won't focus on it because it's so small.

Without teaching my granny about her egg sucking...

Are you sure it's engaged correctly when you rebuilt it? and then it's been twisted around the correct way and placed tension on the spring?

Sorry if these are simple things, but without knowing you it's best to start with the basics!

Steve

Righto here's a bit of a drawing of whats happening.


Description

The top one is the view down the clutch cover. You can see the arm that gets pulled and in turn pulls the springs releasing the plates.
Middle one is a picture of the arm. In red are the edges that are getting taken off.
Bottom one is a section through the arm to give you an idea of how it engages the clutch rod.
I've just stripped and refit the clutch again but have now knackered a 3rd arm exactly the same. One thing I remembered is that I have uprated springs. A few people have though. I don't need any mods for them do I?

Well that's it fellas. I'm stumped. I've stripped the clutch around 6 times now and I'm not preared to do it any more. The arm seems to partially catch the rod then when it is twisted to take the pressure of the springs it's seems to be sliding off the rod and squashing up against the clutch cover taking the edges off the arm and just spinning right round. It's as though there's too much play in the clutch cover recess. I may buy another cover to see if its any different then I don't know. I've gone through 3 arms now! I may just cover the whole thing up and lock the garage door I've had enough. The closer I get to the end the more goes wrong and I've literally gone through 2 of everything from all running gear to bodywork (3 of that!)

Well to finish this thread off. I sat down with pencil, paper and ruler and trawled loads of old threads and I think I've sorted the problem.
My clutch arm looked like this (borrowed from Joel if he don't mind)

[img]http://www.locostbuilders.co.uk/viewthread.php?action=attachment&tid=53195&pid=438874[/img]
but not as bad. When I had another look at the clutch cover it seems that the arm is held by the cover just above and below the release lever but there's no bearing or owt and it seems that one of these 'holes' on the cover that the arm goes through has very slightly ovalled and is allowing a bit of play in the arm. I knocked up a crude top hat spacer out of some ally rod and wedged it in the hole then I welded the notches on the arm and filed and shaped them and it seems to work again! Its not a long term solution, the weld on the arm isn't as strong as the steel around it and is marking up but I'm over the moon that I've finally figured it out. So looking for a new clutch cover and arm if anyone has one.

Bah summat else that don't work. The picture!
here's the link

[Edited on 22/6/08 by mistergrumpy]