My Sportster has been wanting to start pulling forward intermittently with the clutch disengaged at stoplights and in gear, sometimes to the point of stalling. Adjusting screw is set correctly and cable is adjusted with the correct free play at the lever. It gets a little better as it warms up, but never completely goes away. Fluid level is correct. Thinking it might be the grenade plate going, I pulled the primary cover and disassembled the clutch. Spring plate is fine, and all the plates measure correctly in terms of thickness. What I did find, though, was the outermost friction plate has been wearing a notch into the clutch basket (see photo, circled in red) and into the tangs on the friction plate where it engages the basket (see photo). It’s mostly on about 4 of the “ears” on one side of the basket, but all of the “ears” have some wear underneath. It’s only on the outermost friction plate. All the others are fine. Wondering if anyone has any idea why this happened.

 

When you pull the clutch in and the push rod pushes the spring plate out to the left, that friction plate is binding in the basket not allowing it to move outward.. Therefore decreasing the amount of release on the entire pack, which will give you that jumpy grab sitting idling in gear wanting to move forward.. You're going to need a new clutch basket and a new clutch pack. Or at least one new friction.. Don't know where you can get a single one.. Maybe a local windy has something he can help you out with.. And to help us out a little, always list the year and mileage..

 

While I've seen worn clutch baskets where the are grooves all the way down, this is the first I've seen where it was just the outer one. So what would cause the outer to wear more then the inners? The outer friction is driven by the pressure plate on one side and a steel on the other. The things that I would think cause the notch to for could be excessive tab play. a soft basket and possibly the pressure plate driving that bad friction more than the rest. If the surface of the pressure plate was rougher than the steels and the clutch slipped the outer friction would see more load than the rest. I'm not familiar with sportster clutches but if the pressure plate wasn't clocked right when installing, it could be an issue also.. Stock BT clutches don't have it but some after market ones do.

Add,

Another possibility might be that when the clutch was last assembled the outer plate wasn't lined up with the basket and as the pressure plate was tightened down, the basket trimmed a section of the outer fiction tap off which caused the excessive play between the basket and tabs. The tabs on the outer friction then notched the basket.

 

Is it possible that this bike set a long time and the rest of the clutch pack was kind of like locked up and only a little bit was actually working.. Time to take it all apart and have a good look and all the frictions and steels. Might want to get a measurement on your stack height as well..

 

No, the bike has been ridden routinely. It might sit as long as a month at most, but usually not that long. This issue has cropped up over the last year. Never had a problem with clutch slippage or any other issues. I was surprised to find the damage when I pulled the clutch out. I have new friction plates and a new clutch basket on the way. One other question I would ask, though, is about the steel plates. These measure correctly in thickness and aren't warped. They are smooth on the faces, and I think they're original to the bike. Do the steel plates have any kind of grooves or texture to them when new? Everything I see online appear to be smooth. Again, I've had no problem with clutch slippage.

 

If they are not warped or burnt, rough them up a little with some 80 grit, wash them off real good with brake cleaner and re-install them.
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I’ve had the exact same thing on my 1998 Ultra. I might have had 80,000 miles on it.

I never really figured out what caused it. It was ridden regularly.

I’m curious what happened as well...

You need a new clutch hub.....I ended up putting a complete new clutch pack in.

 

The thing I can't figure out is why only the outside friction plate caused the damage, and mainly on one side of the basket. All the other plates are fine. At any rate, I've ordered a new basket and just got new friction plates and a new spring plate. The rivets in the old (original) spring plate are loosening up a little. I was afraid that the spring plate was the problem when I pulled the clutch out to begin with.