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Hello All,
Gotta tear the left side off to repair a transmission oil leak and swap out the transmission pulley. Thought I might as well replace the clutch at the same time.I've read about the rivets falling out of the double riveted stock type plate and have also heard about guys having problems with extra plate clutches.
I'd like to try the extra plate type clutch, but what do you guys think?
when you take the old pulley off make sure to inspect the splines on the main gear where it comes out of the transmission. if it shows any sign of wear you better change it. if it's wore at all and you put a new pulley on it you're going to have to do the same repair next year. don't ask how i know. if your clutch is working good now i would leave it alone. i still have the original clutch in my 85. nothing ever goes wrong with it. it works like it is new yet.
I pulled my primary off to fix an oil leak at the engine, and I put new HD clutch parts in it at that time. I had about 70K miles on the original clutch. When I measured everything per the manual, it was all at the minimum acceptable measurements. I could have put it all back together as it was and probably got another 25K miles from it, but I figgered that while I was in there, I'd put new. Also, as the OEM ones lasted 70K and were still going strong, I just stuck with that.
I put a Barnett "Extra Plate" clutch in my '91 FXRS at about 35,000 miles. It was not only a much better clutch than the stocker but it's still in good shape 60,000 miles later at 95,000 on the clock.
Buddy, your bike looks like a '92 or '93 and those years did have the weak pulley that Bagga mentioned. Harley widened those splines with the '94 models. If you haven't owned the bike since it was new it's possible a previous owner changed the tranny pulley as it is famous for failing. You can tell if it's the original one; the splines are narrower than the thickness of the pulley around the splines.
My experience with the clutch is it's still going strong on my one owner '92 FXRS at 130K.
MP,
It's a 93 and the previous owner had a new belt installed less that 500 miles ago. I purchased the bike in April with 18K original and from what I'm finding out the Indy that he used was not very thourogh. I have a copy of the invoice and the only parts listed are for the belt, primary gasket and oil. I have already pulled the cam side apart and replaced everything there after the cam cover started leaking. Previous owner did not ride much and IMHO I think he was taken advantage of. I can not believe that the original pulley was ever replaced.
After researching and picking up on some of Hacked's tips, I purchased a BDL pulley kit to update the pulley to the 94 and later style. The bike will get ripped down this Saturday. The present clutch works just fine. Just wanted to know what you guys thought in the event that it looks marginal. No one really carries any parts in stock around here for these types of bikes. If worse comes to worse I have everything needed with the exception of a clutch kit.
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