Montesa 4RT Clutch drag!

[darrenatcowes]

Hello people

I've recently purchased a 2006 4RT with a bit of clutch drag.   The bikes always been run using Elf HTX 740 gear oil.

If I hold the clutch lever in the clutch drags , if I blip the throttle the clutch stops dragging but then when I let the clutch out and pull it back in again it  drags  until I blip the throttle again.   When the engine is off and the bike is in gear with the clutch pulled in the bike wheels quite easily. 

I've taken the clutch apart and carried out the clutch mod as detailed in the beta section i.e. removing any excess glue and burrs etc .All the parts looked good  except the clutch plates were slightly discoloured from heat I guess and 2 off them were very slightly distorted by 0.004" in one area which according to the manual thats the maximum tolerance so I thought it may be ok as it was only 2 of them.  I put it back together with fresh Elf oil and it worked lovely for about an hour and then the drag was back. 

I've just drained the Elf oil out and tried ATF and the drag is the same.

Do I need a new clutch kit?

Or do I need to change just the metal clutch plates to maybe the dimpled ones?

Or something else?

Theres no air in the hydraulics and clutch lever is set up ok.

Hoping for suggestions please.

Many thanks.

Edited August 15, 2017 by darrenatcowes

[jonnyc21]

I would suspect the "2 off them were very slightly distorted by 0.004" as your issue.  if you want to go the inexpensive rout then replace them and you should have a good chance it will be fixed.

However if you want to be sure its 100% for as long as possible then just replace the pack with an updated version witch should improve the progressive aspect of the clutch as well as eliminate the drag. (would likely let you run less expensive oil with the same result as well if you wanted)

 

I admit as long as the friction plates where in spec I would swap the two plates and keep running the ELF oil, however if they are getting close to the limits I would likely just swap everything out.

My 2 cents.  Good luck.

Edited August 15, 2017 by jonnyc21
remembered something.

[darrenatcowes]

OK thanks jonnyc21 .      Any idea whose good for Montesa spares?

Edited August 15, 2017 by darrenatcowes

[jonnyc21]

For the US I like http://overlandtrail.biz/ (voice call is best)

In Europe I might try https://jbanyeres.com/en/

good luck.

Edited August 16, 2017 by jonnyc21

[darrenatcowes]

3 hours ago, jonnyc21 said:

For the US I like http://overlandtrail.biz/ (voice call is best)

In Europe I might try https://jbanyeres.com/en/

good luck.

Thanks jonnyc21.     Sorry , I should have said I'm in the south of England.

[jonnyc21]

There is also a good chance you might have a dealer/supplier in England but I have ordered things from jbanyeres and had good service even here in the US...

[thall1]

I sorted my 2006 clutch earlier this year...I posted my 'fix' on 24th may.....the cure was to dress the clutch basket finger edges and remove the very slight ripples on the faces, - the ripples don't look much but they will catch the clutch plates... put a defined chamfer on the basket finger inside edges (0.5mm at least) and on the fingers of the clutch plates....I did fit dimpled clutch plates last year and it did reduce the drag but this fix eliminated it....I use ATF with no drag at all now....