Alright,

So, DBM if you come across this thread, you may remember months ago I did a clutch replacement where the pressure plate face (where it meets the disk) was severely worn away, and the friction disks were fine.

Well, 6 months later, another 160 dollar Barnett clutch pack and guess what? The clutch is totally fried, AND the pressure plate is worn again.

I threw in a 40 dollar caltrec kit from Amazon, the bike acts like a rocket again ( as it should) despite the pressure plate wear. I'm currently saving up for another pressure plate.

So, I'm wondering what is going on here. My inclination is to think that the Barnett kit, for whatever reason, is causing this wear. I know factually I'm completing there replacements correctly. I am in stop and go city traffic all day every day, but I can't imagine with a wet clutch this is causing such an insane degree of wear.

Any ideas? I can post pictures once I get the new hub.... Didnt take any while in there today due to being on the sidewalk when it was hot as all hell here in Port Richmond.

This might be helpful for checking the springs.

Great info Mike.  What stumps me is that it’s only eating up the metal pressure plate(s) and not the fiber discs.

SurvivingPhilly - is it only 1 plate, or are all of them getting chewed up?

Ah. The pressure plate.  Which side is it chewed up on?  You have the thrust washer in there between the pressure plate and outer housing, right?

Are you saying the soft friction disc is grinding down the metal pressure plate?  That seems really strange.  Pic is worth a 1000 words.

I had this on the inside of the hub, but wrote it off as normal wear.

I did change from a 45.5mm push rod to a 46.5mm to raise the release arm towards the top of the zone.  You may need a different length push rod.

I believe the wear is as shown on the attached photo.  The wearing surface on the pressure plate is aluminum......also the clutch hub wearing surface is aluminum.  These surfaces are soft and wear faster than the steel plates - however for most of us they never wear out.  The only other person I know that wore this out was MMRanch - he had 60,000 miles on the bike when he sold it.

Apparently something is allowing the fiber disc to slip along the aluminum surface to cause the wear.  It is not clear if this is happening while the bike is moving - or while the bike is stopped and the clutch lever is pulled in.  There may also be a reason that only the aluminum wearing surface of the pressure plate is being worn - but the aluminum wearing surface of the clutch hub is not.  I suspect the spring washer in the outer plate is preventing the wear as it does not allow the aluminum surface of the plate to come into contact when the fiber disc until the clutch lever is fully released - this would lead me to believe the wear is occurring when you have the clutch lever pulled in and the bike is at rest while the engine is running and in gear.

Tell us a little bit about your commute and riding style?  Do you wait at a lot of traffic lights or stopped traffic and keep the bike in gear and/or have to slip the clutch a lot to move with slow traffic?

Maybe we can do something weird and machine some material off your aluminum pressure plate, and provide you with enough clearance to put a steel plate in that location.

Thanks for the detailed responses guys,

Alright, so Dave -- yes this is exactly where the most wear is occuring, but this time, unlike last time, the clutch fiber disks are totally glazed and the steel plates are totally black/burnt. The worst of this wear is the fiber disks that mates with that pressure disk. Hopefully the attached pictures will be able to be posted.

Bike is the 2013, milage is presumably around 25,000+ (speedo was removed a long time ago). Bike is used year round, daily. I'm a social worker and do a lot of visits all over the city, usually in stop and go traffic off the highways. My inclination IS to sit at red lights/ stop signs with the clutch pulled in while in gear. For longer lights I'll be in neutral with the clutch out. I do abuse this clutch -- I treat virtually every light like a drag race. But be that as it may -- I think this wear is indicative of something strange going on, just because it's so eaten away. I do let the clutch slip between atop signs, which are never really full stops in Philadelphia. Lots of time in the friction zone.

I'm inclined currently to replace the pressure plate and use this caltric clutch kit from Amazon.

Caltric Clutch Friction Plates Spring Gasket Kit compatible with Suzuki Savage 650 1986 1987 1988 1995-2004 https://a.co/d/133nsol


Just for the sake of cost currently. Can't justify another Barnett clutch purchase until I can stop shredding them.

I think you are on to something with the wear.... The hub is totally fine, I would be the first to admit my abuse of the clutch is absolutely contributing here. Just seems odd how bad it gets how quickly.

Paul about the pushrod -- just because I think the thing with these rods is not very well understood, I spent a lot of time grappling with this because the last time I had this issue, I threw the shorter rod in and it solved the slipping issue despite the pressure plate wear, but then I had an issue where the spring bolts were actually hitting the inside of the release arm every time the clutch was engaged, so much so that the bolt heads were warped by interference with the arm. The difference in rod length is very minimal, but the way these clutches are set up they seem extremely sensitive to clearance issues. It sounds and looks counter intuitive that the longer rod would contribute to slippage but the way it sits in there while the clutch is engaged it effects the spring pressure and pushes the clutch ever so slightly more open than the middle or shorter rods.

I've contacted Suzuki directly, in NA and tried to talk to someone in Japan and they weren't able to give me any info on the rods, why the different lengths are even offered, etc.

But the one thing I do know is that the different rod lengths absolutely influence the compression of the plates while the clutch is engaged (not pulled in), and the longer one has them sitting apart further than the shorter.

The last time I had this issue, here's roughly what happened.

1. New Barnett clutch was installed fall of 2022. Clutch replacement was successful and all was right with the world.

2. Clutch started to slip after about 6 months of use.

3. New Barnett clutch pack purchased and installed. Clutch slippage stopped, everything is fine.

4. Clutch starts to slip after two months.... Opened her back up, inspected the clutch, disks looked fine and steels weren't burnt... What is going on here? Maybe these pushrods have something to do with this... Searched the forums, found many posts stating that the longer rod can put you back in spec. Interesting. Spoke to my local mechanic, he didn't know what to think about the rods. Contacted Suzuki NA, spoke to someone who spoke to an engineer who said they didn't know either but use "whatever rod was in there to begin with (middle). Contacted Suzuki Japan and spoke to.... Some Japanese guy. Didn't know what I was talking about.

5. While reading anything and everything I could about clutch wear, decided to open it up throw the longer rod in see if it helps. It didn't. Think was slipping even worse than before, couldn't even leave the front stoop.

6. Decided to put the shorter rod in. Clutch worked fine again. Wow, what the hell?

7. After about a week, I had intense buzzing from the clutch cover. But only with the clutch engaged. When I pulled in the lever and disengaged the clutch, buzzing stopped..... Weird. Sounds bad. What is going on?

8. Opened it back up again, and noticed the spring bolts all had worn heads... the shorter rod was causing the entire pack to move forward in the basket when the clutch is fully engaged because the shorter rod compresses the clutch more than the middle or longer rod.....that's when I realized the rod length effects the compression of the springs when the clutch is fully engaged, and therefore the longer rod actually has the pack less compressed than the shorter ones, and because of this it has to be pushing the arm outside the case DOWN, with the longer one pushing it the furthest down of the three.

Anyway this time fully pulling the basket and checking every component for wear. Washers were replaced, oring replaced, nut replaced... Virtually zero notches on the basket, ok cool. The hub looked fine... Then I noticed the pressure plate. Sent a picture to the forums in an earlier post from that time showing how badly worn it was.

Replaced the plate but kept the disks, as they were still fine. Clutch was good again. This was like last November. Went back to the middle rod. No more slippage.

That bring us here. A few short months later and the entire clutch is fried AND the new pressure plate is deeply gouged again.