[fastmvr]

O.K., I have browsed through the Barnett and Speed* clutch upgrade discussions and I have a question before I proceed. My 07 midnight warrior has just turned 13K miles and I have had it less than a year. I ride it HARD all the time. I was in a parade in VA over the 4th of July and was doing my share of mini-burnouts (road commas) to the annoyance of the HD riders behind me (they always seem to be behind me?!?!?!?). As you can imagine, after several miles of that, my clutch would not engage from overheating and I was able to pull over (without the HD riders knowing what was up!) and let my bike cool down for 30 minutes. The clutch worked fine for the rest of the trip and I changed the oil when I got back. Fast forward a few months and I noticed that my clutch seemed to slip a little when pulling hard in friendly racing situations with my friends. Now, I got up early this morning and went for a ride and it is very evident that my clutch is slipping a lot.


My delimma is that I am leaving on a 1200+ mile 3 day ride on Friday morning and I don't know if I should tackle this project right before I leave (experience says that I should't do any major work on a bike the week of departure) or should I open her up and check spring tension....etc.. I am pretty convinced by reading through this forum that I have probably fried my friction plates???? Is there a simple solution or do I need to replace my entire clutch assembly and is going stock not recommended. I have PR BAK, V&H Big Shots, AIS removed, PCIII w/ amospro. Suggestions anyone?

 

[dmonty]

I've got 17K miles on mine. Somewhere at the 11K mark my clutch started to slip, especially during hard 4th gear acceleration. Thinking that it was way too soon for my clutch to be going tried a cheap fix by switching out the Royal Purple synthetic with Yammi’s Dino oil. After the oil change the slippage stopped; it pulled like a beast again. While this worked surprisingly well all I really did was buy time. The slippage started again at 16K.

Your issue seems further along than my slippage. Considering how far you are planning to travel, fix it.

 

[jamesd]

My problem ended up being that the stock spring steel pressure plate had given out. The friction plates were fine. At 20k I did the Barnett conversion with green springs. I used "new" stock steels and friction plates. It took a couple hours and worked great. The only thing I would be concerned about is over tightening the bolts. They are easy to over torque. I lay'd everything out as I removed it and put the new parts on in the reverse order. No problems.

 

[fastmvr]

Thanks JamesD....I think that I am going to go ahead and do exactly what you did and hope I don't mess anything up or I will be riding b_tch on the back of a slow Harley....actually I will be stuck at home doing the honeydo list. Maybe riding b_tch isn't so bad?!?!?

 

[arizonawarrior]

Your post is exactly what happened to me, starting with a parade. That was many thousands of miles ago.


Don't go on the ride. Buy Yamaha stock clutch friction plates if needed, and buy a Barnett SR-2. If you are unfamiliar, then have a local bike shop do the install. The Barnett spring system is big in HD's so most shops know how to do it right. You won't regret it. Unless you wait too long, you can still get an SR-2 in time if you start calling around locally or call Barnett and ask their help:


http://www.barnettclutches.com/contact/