And now everybody takes a red pen and puts a margin note next step 17A in their Clymers manual ....

"Put the springs and bolts back in and jam a nickle into the gears instead of paying $89 for Honda tool XY307-BA2"

I got it off, but my method will probably make you cringe.

At first I thought maybe I had missed one critical bit of info -- jam the gears before removing the springs. So I put the springs back in, jammed the gears, took the release plate off to get to the nut and...

Nope. The hub still spun.

I tried shifting the tranny out of neutral, but no matter how many times I clicked it, no matter which direction, the pulley still freewheeled and the clutch hub still spun.

Then I had an idea. Maybe I could get just enough clutch friction if I:

•  flipped the release plate over

•  turned it so three of the holes were outside the hub and one aligned with one of the basket posts

•  bolted the release plate to that post a little more than finger tight, pulling the clutch plates together in that area

•  slipped the socket onto the nut

•  gave the end of the wrench a gentle bump to see what would happen (didn't want to get heavy handed and damage something)

•  and the nut came free

Your mileage may vary.

The gears were still jammed at the time, though I don't know if it was necessary.

Oh, and my friction disks are a few hundredths of a millimeter shy of recommended replacement.

Yea !!

Somebody finally wore out a set of disks !!!



 


Or did the dreaded Clymers book error get them?

You know, where the plates are referred to backwards and people measure the thin plate against the thick plate spec and say "mine are all worn out" ??

Don't laugh, it happens ---   happened to the last guy who sent me his worn out plates.