Clutch trauma

Ok, I think I see what happened.

Before I could get to the clutch, I had to remove the baja cage. While I appreciate the desire to mount the cage securely, they had welded a part that, for a street vehicle, I think I would have bolted. Removing the cage meant removing both of the monster bolts which hold the main engine/transaxle support to the frame. Of course, in my naivete, I removed the first and was partway through removing the second before I realized that I was in the process of crushing my arms under the combined weight of the engine and transaxle. Luckily, I did realize it in time :)

Furthermore, I am spoiled to the extremely easy access that my trike affords to the four bolts holding the engine and transaxle together. The bodywork on the yellow trike definitely impedes access to these bolts.

Then there was the extraneous piece of metal that used to hold up something long gone by bolting it to the engine, but now served only to keep the engine and transaxle loosely connected to one another once all the bolts were removed.

You may recall, though I doubt it, that this post is about the clutch.

I think the real problem was adjustment. I had the clutch arm adjusted so far down, to make it disengage easily, that when I rested my foot on the clutch at a stop, it pushed the throwout bearing WAY too far. Repeated sojourns into this extreme position eventually wrenched the spring clip off one pin of the bearing, which then dangled from the remaining pin and ceased to engage correctly. The spring clip can be seen resting comfortably at the bottom of the bell housing.

Examining the cross shaft while still installed, the ends of the fork arms (fingers?) appeared to be bent, which would further indicate that the resting weight of my size 13's is beyond the design limits of the clutch system. Once I had the cross shaft out, however, the semi-circular cuts that mate with the pins on the bearing do not appear to be distorted, which I would have expected if the forks were bent.

So, since I was in there, I replaced the cross shaft, cross shaft bushings, the bearing itself and the spring clips. The new cross shaft has wider fingers, so while the old ones did not bend, the new one almost certainly wont. On the other hand, the spring clips are of a slightly different design, with a full turn of wire at the spring end. They are substantially stronger than the simpler U-shaped springs. This concerns me slightly in that if, despite my efforts, the clutch is still not adjusted like it needs to be, the wider fork fingers might wrench off the spring clips again because the clips are too stiff to just spring out and back. Shrug. I'll find out soon enough.

It seems that the slave cylinder will "pump up" somewhat, regardless of the amount of bleeding I've done. I must conclude that it is a design characteristic. If I adjust the clutch such that it operates correctly with one step on the pedal, I run the risk of a second step, as could very well happen in normal driving, could potentially pump it up far enough to exceed the physical limits of the throwout bearing. The main saving grace is that the new components seem to engage the clutch earlier in the step with the adjustment set almost to mininum, giving it more room without crashing. Only driving it for a while will truly tell.

While the engine was out of the way, I replaced the badly worn transaxle mounts. I also cut the welds on the lower tubes of the baja cage so that it can be installed and removed without pulling those big hairy bolts which hold pretty much the entire drive train to the frame.

I took the opportunity to add a connector to the ignition and oil pressure wires and an inline fuel valve, all which will allow the engine to be removed more easily in the future.

Finally, while the engine was out, I rerouted the throttle cable from the original location (red arrow) to a new, lower location (green arrow) in an attempt to achieve a better pull angle on the carb and thus a lighter effort at the hand throttle. Throttle effort is slightly lighter, though less so than I'd hoped for.

I picked up a vacuum advance distributor today. I hope to install it tomorrow evening as well as reinstall the baja cage and thus the shocks.

That should put it back on the road.