Well, what I will do when the plates arrive is put them in a Corningware dish with some gasoline, cover it tightly with tin foil and let it sit for 24-48 hours.  

Then I will hot water rinse off the gas, then soak the plates with hot soapy water for another 24 hours.  Then I will scrub them again and rinse in hot water and towel dry all the plates, followed by a day or so per side of sunshine on the fiber plates to allow for thorough drying.

Solvent soluble crap and oils will come off in the gasoline, water/soap emuslifiable items will come off in hot soapy water and hot water rinse.

This leaves only the ceramic like surface glazing compounds which will be treated to some 220 grit paper and a finishing sander.  Nothing will remove them but pure mechanical abrasion.  

I will sand very lightly on the fiber plates and quit just as soon as the color changes.   The steel plates will get roughed up pretty good as they can use a total resurfacing job (remove all the old wear grooves).

Then the steel plates get oiled and put in a separate baggie.  The fibers go in all fluffy & dry into another baggie for long term storage.

Now, when you run through the various clutch rod lengths you will find you have enough room for another steel and another fiber plate in your clutch basket as the entire stack height is considerably shorter now.

Adding in a pair of used steel and fiber plates (which may have more meat than your existing fiber plates by then) then proceed to run the clutch swapping out clutch rods as needed until you start to get pure tee bald plates with no remaining fiber on them at all.

Replace bald plates as needed.

This is no real extra work involved here to you as you have to take the side cover off periodically to tune the clutch rods and keep an eye on your cam chain & tensioner anyway.

The cheapest replacement clutch ever found for our Savages was $40 for just the fiber plates from a close out house.   $70 was a more common price for standard plates with some old kevlars being located on ebay for the older SV650 bikes for about that same money several years ago.

$110 is below typical money for a full Barnett Clutch pack with steels and springs and all -- it is a nice clutch system.

But ya see, mine will be a "free" Yoda brand high performance clutch pack -- the extra plates offering extra torque carrying capacity.

Here is Buck's clutch pack after cleaning and sanding.  He did have some energy star "slick stuff" on the steel plates and the surface of the fibers required roughing slightly to get rid of the last traces of the slick stuff on the fibers.

Funny thing, after soaking in gasoline for two days and then repeated scrubs with hot soapy water, drying in the sun then a light sanding the fiber plates measured .1195"-.1200" on the 5 thin plates and .1400" on the one fat plate.

Permit me to translate into good old plain biker English -- only .0005" worth of wear on one plate from brand new and I likely did most of that myself with the finishing sander.

Why did the fiber plates grow some?   Yeah, they grew or fattened up a bit due to rehydration of the cork during the soak and wash cycles.  You soak the corks in hot soapy water scrubbing them with a brush then you dry them very completely after a good hot water rinse.  It is all part of the recovery process.)



So, as Buck said himself we still haven't worn out a clutch pack here on the list.   This spring we have seen what 3-4 clutch packs replaced due to greedy repair shops and one clutch pack replaced due to energy star additive contamination from the use of car oils.

So folks, please look at your oil cans and bottles for that nasty little energy conserving star symbol and don't use the stuff in your Savage -- it can screw your clutch up and cost you (at a bare minimum) $18 for a side gasket and a quart of gasoline and some sand paper to repair the issue once you realize you have it.

Rotella T in the white jug is cheaper than the stuff you used to kill your bike and it is a known good Savage oil.   Rotella T6 Synthetic is simply better oil (better in a whole lot of ways) so if you want synthetic consider the big blue jug instead.

Because it is a diesel oil Rotella has strong anti-foam and soot suspension packages in it that were intended to free float and suspend soot particles for 100,000 miles -- but in your Savage these packages will clean out all the crap in your engine and help remove any of the past sins with any energy star compounds that might have been used by the previous owner.

No one has ever worn out a clutch pack around here yet (to service specs anyway)

Has anyone worn a cam chain out to spec? Seems the tensioner lets go B4 the "stretch" on the chain is maxed out.

Yea, this clutch is toast, but how much of the wear is due to riding & how much is due to the wrong oil making it slip & cook itself?
As` was noted, the rod looks cooked. Any idea if there is a danger of damage (outside the clutch disks themselves) from the heat of those disks slipping?

Ok. So here's the deal. I had a slipping clutch (pretty bad). Took it out and cleaned it as Oldfellers instructions. Put it back together and it now only slips when cold. Once the bike is good and warmed up it doesn't seem to slip at all. The release arm has plenty of free play with the cable unhooked and is within the marks on the case. It also has plenty of free play once the cable is hooked. I'm trying to understand where the longer and shorter rods come into play. Seems to me that there would be no use for a shorter rod as I have freeplay at the release arm now. If I use a longer rod it would only take up a little free play at the release arm and only assist in disengaging the clutch and possibly take away all the freeplay and actually hold the clutch from engaging all the way. I have plenty of adjustment in the cable if needed. I'm sorry I didn't measure anything. Is it possible that I just need new springs. Also just so I understand this "push rod thing" clearly.

I would only need a shorter rod if the one I had in was holding the clutch assembly from totally engaging. Meaning no freeplay at the release arm itself.

I would need a longer arm if the clutch disks where so thick that there wasn't enough throw in the arm to totally disengage the clutch. In other words. A longer arm is needed when there is so much free play at the release lever that you wouldn't be able to adjust that much slack out of the cable itself in order to disengage the clutch all the way.

As your clutch disks wear (get thinner). You may need a shorter rod. Right? A brand new clutch stack (thicker) may require one of the longer rods. Right?


Hope this all makes sense.

I quickly drew up this on paint. Is this correct? If so then what you're saying is backwards. Just trying to fully understand this. On my 87 it's the inner pressure plate that moves in and out like shown in this diagram. The pushrod pushs on the square that compresses all the springs and pushes the inner pressure plate as well. As the clutch plates wear it would move the pressure plate closer to the case making a shorter rod nessassary. If I added a extra disk and friction plate I would need a longer push rod. If my clutch discs were worn thinner I would need a shorter rod.

So... from my original post.... what do I need to keep my clutch from slipping when it's cold?

Yea. I'm using a 20w 50 now. I just bored it .05 over and put a new piston in. (bought it all torn apart with a bad piston) Changed oil three times now and the next will be with Rotella T6 Synthetic. Should be broke in well enough by then. Hopefully that will help with the clutch. I also just ordered a EBC HEAVY DUTY CLUTCH SPRING SET off of Ebay for 12.39. I figured for that price it couldn't hurt. Should I also shim the new springs?

When I do the springs I'll see for myself if a longer or shorter rod is needed as your clutch wears. I still say "as your clutch wears a shorter rod will be needed" but I will do the test myself and take pictures. May prove myself wrong. I love it when that happens   Cause it just doesn't happen that often.   And definately not afraid to admit it when it does.