Excessive clutch freeplay

[wheel_of_steel]

Hello all, long time lurker but first time posting.

I would like some advice from members who have replaced their clutch plates. Current situation: I have a manual 700S training bike that has used up all the clutch cable freeplay adjustment - both at the lever and on the clutch arm. This is natural for a training bike but the wear rate was high until I replaced the original cable with the longer item from the manual integra. But even at a normal wear rate, the time had come to throw a set of fibers in there to restore the clutch stack height back to original.

Long story short, the new fibers are in, after reassembly the clutch arm angle is still quite bad. If you are sitting on the bike, there is no resistance in the clutch arm until about the 10 O clock position. Naturally I assumed assembly error so I've checked and rechecked the following:
-Clutch plates were soaked in oil for 24h before assembly
-Clutch lifter rod (in the RHS cover) is assembled correctly
-RHS cover is sitting flush with the engine case
-Clutch plate B (the thinner disc) is aligned with the second set of teeth on the clutch basket
-Judder spring installed such that there's almost no slop once the clutch basket is assembled
-Clutch spring free length is in spec

So is there any low hanging fruit that I've missed in terms of reassembly tricks?
Can anyone take a photo of a newish 700 clutch arm to give an idea of the appropriate arm angle?
I can shim under the lifter plate to adjust the clutch arm angle, but that definitely feels like the wrong way to go about this.

TIA,
-Tom

 

[670cc]

I don’t know the answer to the problem, but some questions came to mind. Fiber plate wear is to be expected, but do the metal plates also wear down, albeit more slowly? Does Honda give a a thickness spec for the metal plates, and advise replacement at some minimum thickness? I’ll need to check my service manual.

 

[Rapturee]

Welcome to the RIDE W.O.S. and a hearty welcome from northern IDAHO USA! :{)

 

[wheel_of_steel]

I don’t know the answer to the problem, but some questions came to mind. Fiber plate wear is to be expected, but do the metal plates also wear down, albeit more slowly? Does Honda give a a thickness spec for the metal plates, and advise replacement at some minimum thickness? I’ll need to check my service manual.

They only give a maximum allowable warpage spec which you can check with a feeler gauge. Just for anyone with the same issue possibly reading this later, I fixed this by adding a few (four) m5 washers between the clutch springs and the lifter plate. This resulted in the lifter plate sitting further out from the centerline of the bike when the four lifter plate bolts were tightened down. Lifter plate sitting further out = closer to the RHS engine cover = clutch arm sits further back at a normal angle. This meant I could return the cable freeplay adjusters back to their factory positions.

I've put about 200 km on it since reassembly and all is well. It's probably not the textbook solution, but the clutch is working perfectly now. Maybe at 100k when these fibers are worn out, I will give some R&R to the basket, steel plates, and replace the springs to rectify any unsolved issues I've smothered here.

Cheers
-Tom

 

[Junkie]

Did you check spring length vs spec? If adding spring preload helped, my best guess is that the springs are shorter than they ought to be.