Yagi gets New Clutch Pack

I'd been suspecting slight slippage on the clutch of my TW200.  I'd been putting off, looking into it due to my ongoing malaise towards motorcycling.  

This has been going on for a while with Yagi, it was brought to the fore most recently when Yagi was briefly ridden by Steve of ScooterintheSticks. while showing me around his neck of the woods.

He experienced noticeable "lag" when upshifting gears on the hills and inclines of middle Pennsylvania and commented to me about it.  I'd been experiencing < 1 sec "lags" at times when upshifting and had been wondering if a new clutch pack was in order.

Fast forward to the present, I'd tried several times to get rid of the lag through repeated adjustments of the clutch cable.  The lag would start soon after the engine was warmed up, just not initially during the test rides I did.

So, with time on my hands and no significant riding/camping plans at present, it was time to try a new clutch pack.  

I got these via Amazon:

What showed up seemed OK, this was my first clutch pack replacement on the TW200 so what did I know, right?  

One error was not ordering the kit that included the paper gasket that lines the clutch cover but it turned out OK anyways.  (I reused the old one and so far, no leaks.)

The friction material on the above pads felt slightly rough to the touch, as expected.

The same pads on the old clutch disks felt smooth.  So even though they were at spec: min of 2.8mm, I wonder if they were glazed or worn down.

I soaked the new clutch disks in new engine oil overnight and this morning took about 3 hours to do the swap.  First time, frequent consulting of the youtube videos listed at the end and some puzzling re the pushrod adjustment.

You'll note the kit came with new springs.  They new ones were 37mm in length.  The old ones were at most 36mm in length.  The spec from Yamaha is 35.3mm.

Nope, not a single picture taken of Yagi's clutch bits.  The videos below show things quite clearly.

I got things put back together and once I refilled the engine with fresh oil I took her out for a 15 mile test ride.  Nothing blew up and there's no "lag" anymore!  We'll see how things go with some more test riding but am happy to report I didn't make things worse.

So, no clear "smoking gun" as to the slippage experienced before.  It's gone now so I'm moving on.  (I'm betting it was worn clutch disks).

YouTube videos consulted:

ProCycle

Rocky Mountain ATV MC

Sunrise Ride with Yagi

I was awake at 5AM, previous experience said it was probably not worth it to try and get more sleep, so up I went for some coffee.

It was a mere 75°F this early here in the Colorado Front Range so I sat outside on the driveway watching the eastern horizon begin to light up.

The coolness got me thinking, once minimally caffeinated, that this was probably a good time of the day for a short ride.  It was another torridly sunny hot day in the weather forecast (but at least not as humid as in the lower elevations in the rest of the country).

Coffee consumed, geared up, and off I went in my latest effort to reestablish trust in Yagi, my Yamaha TW200 with its sporadic charging issue.

I rode through the quiet neighborhoods and then proceeded east on Quincy Road, past the county fairgrounds and onto Sage Ridge road to pose Yagi.

The air was nice and cool as it was let in by the riding jacket provided by Steve of Scooterinthesticks and for a little while my mind was pleasantly in neutral.

Something to be said for riding a motion the cool of the day, along a low traffic county road, nothing intruding in one's thoughts but the act of riding.

Photos collected, I rode back in now warming temperatures.  Yep, it was going to be another one today.  Some clouds in the forecast for the rest of the week so perhaps some relief from the sun's heat.

The same sun, which warms one when riding in winter's cold conditions isn't quite as welcomed in summer.  Yep, there's ways to deal with heat and riding gear, but nowadays my mind just doesn't see the return on investment of effort.  

Still, it was a nice ride and Yagi's charging system was working....guess I shouldn't ask for much more eh?

Umarang is back from the Shop

Umarang, or Uma the VRRV, was retrieved from the mechanic shop this afternoon.

She went in for frequently occuring OBDII error code P0152.  Here's what Google AI said of the error:

The Ford E-450 P0152 code indicates that the upstream oxygen sensor on Bank 2, Sensor 1 is stuck at a high voltage reading (typically above 0.9 volts). This tells the powertrain control module (PCM) that the engine is running excessively rich (too much fuel, not enough oxygen) on the driver's side of the engine.

The technician found a broken wire on this O2 sensor, so easy fix with a new sensor. 

He also ran diagnostics on the two rear O2 sensors and and the MAF sensor at my request.  All good.

All Uma needs now is an oil change soon and new tires in about a month or so.  We're letting the credit cards cool off a little from being used the last couple of months!

Update: 16JUL26.  Engine oil and filter changed out at Walmart service center.

Repairs/Maintenance on Scarlett's Final Drive - the prep work

About two days ago I got the word from Randy F. (retired Ural dealer) that he was willing to do the work involved with replacing leaking seals and the worn driven gear hub on the final drive.

To prepare the final drive for transport to Randy's shop, I removed it (carefully slow due to my still recovering back) and cleaned it up.

The final drive is the component which takes rotating input from the primary drive shaft coming out of the motorcycle's transmission; converting it to rotating motion and "driving" the pusher wheel when in 1WD and also the sidecar wheel when in 2WD.

Here's the final drive, sort of cleaned up:

the arrow points to the driven gear

hub's teeth, onto which the rear wheel is

mated onto....

The worn out teeth of the driven gear hub are seen below.  Quite pointy.

Below pic shows the replacement driven gear hub, note what the gear teeth should look like when compared to the above pic:

Here's the mostly cleaned up final drive, along with the new driven gear hub that Randy will install.  The rubber boot goes on the sidecar drive shaft, I just zip tied it to hub to remind me to get a new one from Randy.

Next, I replaced the pusher wheel's splined flange, which mates the wheel to the final drive's driven gear hub.  Here's what it looked like before I removed it from the wheel: Yep, quite filthy.

again, very pointy

gear teeth

Why are both items' gear teeth so pointy you ask?  As they're "mated" or "coupled" together for operation, they induce wear on each other's teeth I believe.  Eventually wearing down the teeth in spite of periodic applications of grease by me. (usually during oil changes of the engine).

Here's the new splined flange before I reinstalled the mounting bolts and inside wheel cover:

mounting hardware installed.

To show you the wear, I coupled the old splined flange onto the old driven gear hub's teeth.  You can see how the gaps between the two sets of gear teeth were quite large.  

Next, I put the old splined flange onto the new driven gear hub's teeth.  I think I could have gotten away with not replacing the flange on the wheel but it would have induced wear sooner I think.  Not to mention, it wasn't a hard task.

All this work below has been long over due I'm almost sad to say.  I'd been thinking about replacing the driven gear hub on my 2014 Ural Patrol's final drive for quite a while now, but had put it off at any excuse.

For those of you who've been reading this blog for a while, you know that's quite unlike me.  I use to rush to repair or service, now, not so much.

There's an upcoming fork in my riding life's road ahead I believe.  Brigitta, my '87 R80 is gone to a new owner who'll ride it more than I had been.  Yagi, the 2006 TW200 is proving a bit unreliable with a sporadic charging issue.  Scarlett, my 2014 Ural Patrol has become a local riding only machine.

Part of me suspects that getting all this work done is to prepare for their eventual sale.  Who knows?  I'm coming up on 20 years of writing this blog, and loyal readers have seen it change ...