Has anyone fixed the grabby clutch for sure?

I've done some reading, and it appears that I'm not alone in suffering from the awful >3500 RPM clutch grab/cough.

Has anyone permanently fixed it? How did you do so? I'm contemplating a complete Barnett clutch kit soon as I just can't live with it - I'm afraid I'm going to get asspacked by a cager some day pulling too slowly off a light!

Mine seems to have come right by itself; certainly, I can take off fairly aggressively without the nonsensical behaviour I used to get.

I had a grabby clutch, which was fixed by replacing the clutch plates and springs. However that was on my old motor and the new (35,000km) motor I've got in it now also has the dreaded grabby clutch. Grrr.

I know what you mean... I'm hoping a new chain, bleed, possibly new cush's and a 45T will help before I contemplate the clutch.

Sometimes I hurt it :sad:

My '00 used to be the same way and I thought the same, it was time for a new clutch.

Best place to start is to clean the slave cylinder. That's where my problem was.
Remove, dissassemble, clean thoroughly, reassemble - preferrably with brake grease, bleed.
Now mine is smooth as butter.

It's cheap and not hard to do.

I'm not familiar with this problem?

-Jake

11 years and 80,000 km and I've never had an issue?

I changed the clutch a couple thousand K's ago, just because I would have the cover off, and doing the clear cover mod, and the clutch still works fine.

I haven't heard of this either, although, I have a 4th Gen. Luckily I don't have to worry about the dreaded clutch grab... Just electrical fires. :tongue:

I too am unfamiliar. I'm at over 72,000 on my '99 and never had an issue... (Never even removed the clutch cover)
I keep my lever pivots greased, my hydraulic cylinders clean, and my fluid clear (Not brown!). Just switched over to an SP1 clutch master with my front end rebuild, and it's even better than the stock VFR was.
Cheapest thing to try is flushing the fluid, maybe even pull the slave cylinder and clean the bore and seal, make sure the pushrod is clean and straight. Take off the lever and clean the pivot and where the lever pushes the master cylinder and lightly grease them.

Glad to hear that some people haven't had it, but I do... and if you've ever had it, you'll know that it's not a question of maintenance. But thanks for the input.

kaldek, did you use factory Honda parts or aftermarket?

I Googled this since I still wasn't sure what the problem was. My search turned up this thread which defines and address the issue. Short story is to remove your clutch rod and clean it. I'd be interested to see if this solves your problem.

-Jake

I can't find it at the moment, but there's a thread either here or on VFRW discussing it. I'm going to try cleaning the clutch rod, but that thread has several people who report no change. I'm looking for input on someone who's actually fixed it, and what they did... not many people came back into the other threads and reported results.

Changing my frictions and springs (bought an EBC kit on Ebay) fixed the sub 3500rpm grabbiness, but some of the steels were visibly burned or discolored, so I should have replaced them too. I found Barnett steels for $56 shipped on Amazon and they should be here in a day or two.

Doing a clutch job is cheap and easy--if you have some Allens to take off the fairing, an 8mm and a 10mm socket, and the basic understanding of how to use them, you can replace the clutch in under an hour.

[image: View Post]Jakobi, on 13 October 2011 - 03:08 PM, said:

I Googled this since I still wasn't sure what the problem was. My search turned up this thread which defines and address the issue. Short story is to remove your clutch rod and clean it. I'd be interested to see if this solves your problem.

-Jake

For those who dunno what this thread is about: it's something that also afflicts the VTR1000: take off abruptly with too many revs and the clutch bites and squeals/graunches, so you pull it in slightly and let it out again and it does it again. Makes it almost impossible to take off fast and cleanly.

Oh, that's different from what mine was doing. During slow take offs, the engine would shudder. If I'd keep the rpm up around 3k or so and let out the clutch more quickly, the shuddering would be almost gone. With the new clutch plates, I can let out the clutch just off idle with hardly any throttle and it's smooth.