Overheated bike and fried clutch
CactusValk:
Hey guys,
A few months ago I bought 97 standard and went through it doing small maintenance and repairs. I've put about 1k miles on it and the bike rides great.
For valentines day weekend, I decided to take my girl to a national park. The trip out there was great, about 250 miles. The park was SLAMMED with people and we ended up in crawling traffic in line to enter. After about 25 minutes of crawling, I felt the engine get hot, I could feel it getting a little sluggish and I was just about to turn around and tell me girl we might have to visit the park another day because the bike is starting to overheat in the traffic.
Just as I was deliberating, the cap on the reservoir tank popped and coolant spewed everywhere. I pulled off the road as best I could and turned the engine off. We let it cool for over a half hour. I planned on limping the few miles back into town and checking it out form there, and to my dismay the clutch was gone. I ended up getting rescued by a family member with a trailer.
So I'm back at and trying to figure out my next step. Obviously the cooling system and clutch both need attention. I just don't know where to start. After some digging I've learned that the clutches for these bikes are much more of a production to service than other bikes I've had.
Anyone have experience rebuilding the clutch at home? Any thoughts or words of encouragement would be helpful, this sucks haha. I bought this bike to go two up with my lady and this happened on our first big trip. I'm willing to try and fix it myself but I don't want to throw a ton of money at it if it's a sinking ship. Thanks for reading!
Valker:
Sounds like your cooling fan was broken. Can't help with the clutch. Mine are all still stock ones.
Skinhead:
The clutch isn't too difficult of a job. The tech board and search are your friends. There are plenty of posts about the clutch rebuild, and there may even be YouTube videos on it. What year is the bike? 98s are notorious for damper plate River failures, I bought one with that issue and repaired it with a clutch from a bike with a bad motor.
98valk:
the clutch is fine. put some rotella in it. fix why the fan didn't come on, check thermostat replace if needed, take any decorative radiator covers off, put correct coolant in it, burp the system.
go ride
Pluggy:
When the clutch fails to engage or disengage, a lot of owners want to remove the clutch friction parts. Often, the hydraulic parts are the cause of problems. Fluid, master cylinder and the clutch slave cylinder have shown to be problems. Checking these items is an easy first step.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page