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'08 250F Clutch (design) Problems

Posted: Fri Nov 23, 2007 8:30 am
by Mikey350D
I am beginning to suspect '08 clutch is poorly designed.
My son's clutch began slipping after 6 hours.
Clutch looks perfect and he's not an abuser.
The very inside (fiber) plate is much narrower than the others and there ar 2 spacer rings on this inner disk.
Doesn't make sense to me: This is the main disk that contacts the innner basket and it's half the width of other disks.
I'm going to pull the metal spacer out and put in an '07 clutch.

Posted: Fri Nov 23, 2007 9:25 am
by crfsonly
we'd be very interested in the results. while we haven't heard of this from other 08 owners we'd interested in knowing if your fix resolves the issue you're having.

ken

Posted: Fri Nov 23, 2007 11:43 am
by Mikey350D
The metal rings were putting serious groves in the first metal clutch plate.
I just put in '07 plates and will be practicing & racing this weekend. I let you know how it goes.

Posted: Fri Nov 23, 2007 4:57 pm
by Jeff Gordon
Mikey350D wrote:The metal rings were putting serious groves in the first metal clutch plate.
I just put in '07 plates and will be practicing & racing this weekend. I let you know how it goes.


Ours has 25 hours or so of hard riding and no problems whatsoever. Sounds like a factory mess-up. I'm not taking mine apart until it needs the top end refreshed and I'll look at them then.

Posted: Sun Nov 25, 2007 10:09 am
by Mikey350D
I have been told Yamaha and Suzuki use a similar configuration:
Narrow fiber plate, one space ring and one concave ring. Supposed to reduce plate chatter (?)
It's possible that I let the clutch cable run tight and clutch burned/glazed.
'07 clutch worked fine this weekend (AX)
I will try a new '08 clutch and chamfer the edges of the concave spacer ring:
It's wearing a major groove in inner-most metal plate. Suspect metal plate will expire before fiber does.

Posted: Sun Nov 25, 2007 10:15 am
It's possible that I let the clutch cable run tight and clutch burned/glazed.

That's my guess Mikey, the CRF250R's around here have been having no problems, and that's easy to do.
Good luck this weekend,too ! Doug

Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2007 6:21 pm
by Mikey350D
Update:
'07 clutch plates seem to work fine in '08.
Have 4 AX motos plus several AX practice days and one outdoor practice on above set-up.
Inspected clutch tonight and everything looks fine.
No complaints from rider.