I've just been "Savaged", it's a term I've just invented it means that some imbecilic design flaw that can completely ruin your day.

The gf is away from home and suddenly she has no clutch. Has to get a friend to tow the bike to some local bike shop. I'm told that it's the clutch arm assembly and it's a 40 dollar part and needs to come from Japan. However I find out eventually that it was in fact the cam. There's not much I can do about it now.

They ended up charging her 40 bucks for the part which is a $10 part. Suzuki of course have none in stock. It snapped exactly where you'd expect it to at the high stress point, and looking at it I can see that it's sintered or something like that. It looks like it's been built to fail. How Suzuki can use a sintered part for something like this is beyond my ken. It's astounding.

The bike shop claimed to know all about the S40 and they say this is a regular occurrence. I translated that as 'yeah my mate saw one like this once'.

They also charged for an oil change. So they've had the frikken side cover off meaning you've got to take the muffler and all that off. So being 'experts' I'm going to ask them if they checked the cam chain tensioner while they were there. It was at 15mm last I checked a couple of months ago and I was hoping to make it to the next oil change to check it.

This is why you should work on your S40 yourself, most people don't work on their bikes and they'll fix a cam like this and not even look at the tensioner, which but for a glance can end up with a very expensive accident.

I must say that I'm surprised to have not heard about this yet after two years here because the cam chain tensioner comes up like clockwork.

Surely this $10 part is a must for a toolkit. Had we been on a interstate journey and this happened that would be it, it would cost a fortune, Would have to hole up in a hotel for two weeks waiting.

This actually happened to me on my previous BMW 650LS I was driving up from Sydney on a 1000km journey on a spanking new BM and it blew a rear main oil seal while I was overtaking a semi trailer with on coming traffic and suddenly my tach is spinning but nothings happening, just snuck back behind the semi before a head on, and found the rear tyre covered in oil.

It was the weekend when Australia won the America's Cup with Alan Bond's famous winged keel. I watched it on a sh!tty motel TV waiting for repair.

When mine died, right there, it broke the chain guide too.
It's a good idea to replace the oring in the case. It's cheap and when it gives up, it's a hassle.

Hiko wrote on 10/15/18 at 20:58:19:

If these things are a weakness  they look like an easy job for a cnc mill to make out of better material.

Exactly.

@JoG, you mean the metal o ring? It's too late now it's done but I could always replace it when I put the new tensioner in.

Did I mention that we had to wait two weeks for the part to come from Japan. That's right not a single one of these $10 items in Australia. I rang up Suzuki today to purchase a spare for the toolkit, but guess what they have none in stock.

That's right they shipped one from Japan. ONE. frikken idiots.

eau de sauvage wrote on 10/15/18 at 16:41:01:


Not sure I'm reading this right, but there's a lot of posts about the clutch cam on here.  Mine was last month.  

I joined this forum in 2012, and for a long time JOG was the only member I knew of that had broken a clutch release cam. Later on one or two would be reported each year - most folks never have a problem with it.

I have installed the stiffer EBC clutch springs this year, and I felt a bit nervous about the stronger springs - several members have used these springs and not broken the clutch cam.  

I do believe this part could be improved - but I don’t know why some break and most don’t.