Outer Clutch Basket Wear

While doing a DR D suspension upgrade during the winter I have decided to repace my clutch plates and springs with barnett. The reason being that on occation (not very often) the clutch would do this funny clutch shutter thing when the engine was cold during engagment but only cold, otherwise it would work fine.

I have the clutch apart now and of course there is some wear where the plates slide on the outer basket. I have looked in the manual and it says if its worn replace it. I can't find any specs on wear but its not that bad. I really don't want to replace it at the moment and have thought about lightly filing the basket to remove some of the groves. Has anyone done this with good results or shoud I even worry about it.

I replaced the clutch fibre discs about two weeks ago on my 90000km 1999 VFR. The old discs were worn down and my clutch was grabby making smooth release a bit iffy. I did look at the clutch outer but this wasn't noticeably worn, I could feel slight undulations on the edges but no major ridges, so I just fitted the new plates up. Very happy with the clutch action now.

I would say that if the outer discs can't slide smoothly in and out of the outer, that some remedial work might be worth doing. Filing the edges smooth sounds like the right thing to do, but without getting too carried away and making the slots too much wider. Or do what I did, fit the new plates without the filing and just see how it works. I'm guessing that if you pulled the clutch cover off after just a few weeks the gasket would probably come off in one piece.

Ya, thats what I was thinking. Good point about the gasket, I won't use any Honda bond on it.

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Did you check the metal plates (between the friction plates) for warpage?

are the springs still within spec?

Some marking on the basket is to be expected and can be very gently be files away.

Great post Terry.

I put a Barnett kevlar clutchpack into mine at 80k. There were noticable marks on the tangs of the clutch basket but I didn't bother cleaning them up, and the clutch felt great on re-assembly - put another 15k on it without issue.

While you are at it - it's worth cleaning up the slave cylinder, and while you are doing that, drain and clean the master cylinder.

maxredline

While doing a DR D suspension upgrade during the winter I have decided to repace my clutch plates and springs with barnett. The reason being that on occation (not very often) the clutch would do this funny clutch shutter thing when the engine was cold during engagment but only cold, otherwise it would work fine.

I have the clutch apart now and of course there is some wear where the plates slide on the outer basket. I have looked in the manual and it says if its worn replace it. I can't find any specs on wear but its not that bad. I really don't want to replace it at the moment and have thought about lightly filing the basket to remove some of the groves. Has anyone done this with good results or shoud I even worry about it.

Mine had the exact same problem when cold (approx 69,000 miles), and I filed the basket with no change. When I replaced the springs, that's what fixed it. They measured perfectly in spec, but they were the problem. last 8k miles have been no problem.

Everyone is always messing with the clutch, trying to get it to behave like a normal clutch should. Out of the box when brand new, the VFR800 has a clutch that makes a little clutch basket rattle noise, at idle, in neutral, with the lever out. It is normal, that is just what they do.

Also when trying to launch at anything over 4000 RPMs, it varies from bike to bike, you can get a lot of clutch chatter that makes the clutch feel like an on off switch, instead of providing smooth modulation and feel.

This is also just a normal VFR800 trait, it is just what they do.

When Honda designed the clutch and hydraulic system, they set out with a few goals in mind. The VFR800 being a touring bike, they were after a light clutch lever, but with the VFR800 being as heavy as it is, with a decently torquey engine, the clutch needed to have plenty of torque holding capacity.

So what did Honda do? They gave the VFR800's clutch an enormous amount of frictional area to provide adequate torque capacity, while using light weight clutch springs. So in Honda's eyes, mission accomplished, they just successfully designed a clutch that can handle the severe duty of a heavy weight and some what torquey touring bike, while still providing a light comfortable, touring friendly lever.

Sounds like a win-win right? Well not really... With all of that frictional area and springs that are really light, you are left with clutch that has springs that are too weak to control the clutch pack. The springs prove to be adequate at lower RPMs, but at higher RPM launches, the clutch pack becomes unstable and you get a lot of clutch chatter.

So what does your average VFR owner do? They try all the different lever positions. They bleed out the lines a million times and put all new fluid in the system trying to get any possible trapped air out of the hydraulic system. Some even go as far as to polish the push rod and debur the basket and plates, I know I did, but to no avail. All this work, to fix what you think is an aging clutch that needs to be replaced lol.

I did it all and just as I was getting ready to throw in the towel and buy all new oem plates and a new basket, when one of the members on here (Toecutter) was having his own clutch problems, not due to the inherent VFR clutch chatter, but due to the fact that he had installed a super charger and the 200whp was burning up his clutch in the upper gears when under boost.

So he was trying everything he could to get more holding capacity out of the VFR's clutch, from experimenting with Barnett plates for VFR all the way to CBR's or some heavy big displacement cruisers and even adding an extra plate or two. Nothing seemed to do the trick and some seemed to worsen the chatter or cause other weird characteristics.

Eventually he thought about, instead of increasing the coefficient of friction or the frictional area, why not just increase the normal force (spring pressure)? He messed around with shimming the clutch springs and the off the shelf Barnett springs, which helped a little, but didn't quite give all the holding capacity needed for super charged application.

Then finally he found a set of custom Barnett springs that were made for an aftermarket big twin's clutch that just happened to fit in the standard VFR800 clutch housing, but had 99 lb/inches of seat pressure. These springs, when used with the factory oem VFR800 plates, are able to hold all the power of a supercharged VFR800 and they had the added side benefit of being able to stabilize the clutch pack for 9000 plus RPM launches. Two birds with one stone, Win Win.

I have been using the 99 pound barnett clutch springs:

(Barnett Springs 99lb MT-91-6, 501-99-06091, TR 49-0747)

for a few years now and they have been great. They definitely add a good amount of lever effort and are not for the faint of heart, but they totally eliminate all high RPM clutch chatter. Later on I upgraded to a Brembo radial master cylinder, a +2mm HRC/TSR slave cylinder and an SS clutch line to lighten up the clutch lever weight some what and add some more feel. I have to say, the feel, lever weight and ease of high RPM modulation is fantastic with this set up.

AND THE BEST PART IS, I AM AT 70,000 MILES ON THE FACTORY PLATES, AFTER LAUNCHING AT 9000 PLUS RPMS AT THE DRAG STRIP FOR YEARS. I really cannot stress this enough, There is no reason to mess with the factory clutch plates. Maybe after you hit 100,000 plus miles, the bike sits for years, you accidentally roasted the clutch/warped the plates from launching in sixth gear or some other weird instance, but I have been abusing the crap out of my factory Honda clutch plates for 70,000 miles and they are fine.

I mean seriously, I ride like a complete squid, do clutch ups and drag nights, 9000 plus RPM launches 24-7 and the factory plates are fine. Every time I see someone installing a Barnett clutch kit on their 20,000 mile VFR800, I cringe. People are wasting time and money on a fix that in reality is probably just going to make it worse.

Yeah some people report that after installing a Barnett clutch kit, it feels slightly improved. That improvement was not due to changing the plates out, that slight improvement in feel was from changing out the marginal and possibly tired oem springs, for slightly stiffer and new, Barnett springs.

^ Very interesting.

I went with the Heavy Duty spring option when I fitted my Barnett Kevlar clutch kit (at 80,000km - 50,000m) and I noticed no additional lever effort - but then again I also drained and refilled the clutch hydraulic system, and fixed a corrosion problem on the slave piston. So perhaps the hydraulic system was better. Regardless, I would not call the lever effort particularly arduous. I did notice that the bike hooked up better off the line with the Barnett clutch - it would try to wheelie in first gear. It never came close to doing that prior to the clutch replacement.

Back to the clutch basket - as per a separate topic, the basket is identical for 1886 to 1997 VFRs.

The Phantom

^ Very interesting.

I went with the Heavy Duty spring option when I fitted my Barnett Kevlar clutch kit (at 80,000km - 50,000m) and I noticed no additional lever effort - but then again I also drained and refilled the clutch hydraulic system, and fixed a corrosion problem on the slave piston. So perhaps the hydraulic system was better. Regardless, I would not call the lever effort particularly arduous. I did notice that the bike hooked up better off the line with the Barnett clutch - it would try to wheelie in first gear. It never came close to doing that prior to the clutch replacement.

Back to the clutch basket - as per a separate topic, the basket is identical for 1886 to 1997 VFRs.

The off the shelf Barnett springs for the VFR800 are only about 10% heavier than factory, say maybe 70 pounds versus the factory 60 pounds (just making up numbers here for argument sake). It is nothing dramatic, that you would feel, but it does help a tad, coupled with new discs that could be a hair thicker, adding a tad of preload to the clutch pack, it helps a somewhat with feel and clutch chatter.

The custom Barnett springs that I am talking about are 99 pounds and A LOT heavier than the drop in Barnett springs and even more so than the factory Honda springs. It is very noticeable at the lever and totally eliminates any clutch chatter.

I can only speak from my own experience, on my 800 which had 70,000km on it when I bought it and now has nearly 94000. I run two bikes, the VFR and a VTR1000 (which has done 77,000km), and so making comparisons is inevitable, and any issue on one bike sticks out like a sore thumb. My VTR has a great clutch, and a recent inspection revealed what look like near-new plates in it. My VFR clutch action on the other hand could only be described as poor. No chatter at high rpm launches (I don't do these) and no slip at all, but there was a narrow engagement zone, and not as much slip as I would like, so take-offs were not the smooth and stylish affairs that I wanted. I purchased EBC plates and for good measure, some EBC springs which are somewhat stiffer than stock, all from Partzilla.

My clutch action is now what I expect of a decent clutch, a smooth transition from free to engaged over a decent span, and no lurching or sudden engagement. The clutch pull is just slightly stiffer than it was but that makes no difference to me.

The old fibre plates were quite black, and quite thin compared to the new EBCs; I'd say just normal wear and tear on an old part. Clutch discs do much the same job as brake discs and I think they should be considered as an item that wears with time and eventually benefits from replacement.

The narrow engagement point that you describe, may not actually be a narrow engagement point, it may actually have been low rpm chatter.

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