Article [13] ST1300 - Clutch Replacement

Thought that I'd add another data point to the article. One of the reasons I always liked to give Curt a hand whenever he asked was that I knew that sooner or later, I'd likely need to do the same thing to my bike. It's always easier to hone ones skills on other peoples bikes. ;)

FYI: Original thread for this article can be found here. There is more information there that some people might find useful.

Well, 4 years later and with 148k miles on the clock I needed to remove the front crankcase cover in order to rebuild the water pump assembly. With this done I realized that it would be foolish not to take apart the clutch to see how much wear and tear I've accumulated on it and see if any parts were in need of replacement. To date, I have not experienced any drivability issues with it and I didn't want to needlessly order a new clutch kit if I didn't need to. Here is what I found:

Clutch spring measurements in mm. According to the 2003 Service Manual, Standard spring free length is 55.0mm with the service limit at 54.0mm.

Spring 1 54.06
Spring 2 54.02
Spring 3 54.05
Spring 4 54.25
Spring 5 54.03
Spring 6 54.01

I see that all but one of the springs are right at the service limit, so they will be replaced.

As for the clutch friction plates, in order from front to rear:

Clutch Plate 1 3.88
Clutch Plate 2 3.75
Clutch Plate 3 3.76
Clutch Plate 4 3.78
Clutch Plate 5 3.78
Clutch Plate 6 3.77
Clutch Plate 7 3.75
Clutch Plate B 3.83

Clutch friction plate ?Standard? thickness according to the service manual is 3.72-3.88 mm with a service limit of 3.50mm. Seems like I?ve got some significant life left in the plates. No discoloration on any of them and they are all flat. Replacement cost of the plates would run about $150 not including the springs which I'm already ordering. Don?t see the need right now to order new plates. Just one of the advantages of doing your own work.

I remember how much sand and grit we found in Curt's bike once we removed the covers. I think he was trying to create a new nature preserve. Here's a picture of what I had stuck in the secret passages:

Grit accumulation.jpg

Not too bad. I noticed that my crankcase cover bolts seemed much easier to remove than his were. I know that he bought that bike used, perhaps the previous owner had the cover off previously and used some Locktite on them. Toughest part of this job will be removing the paper gasket from the crankcase. From what I've seen so far, the gasket on my bike looks rather brittle so maybe it will peel off easier.

If anyone has a new set of Honda OEM clutch friction plates on hand can you measure the thickness of a couple of them for me? This will give me a better feel for how much life I've got left in my plates...
 
Scooter said:
If anyone has a new set of Honda OEM clutch friction plates on hand can you measure the thickness of a couple of them for me? This will give me a better feel for how much life I've got left in my plates...
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Scooter: I measured my new replacement clutch friction plates. They're .15" (3.81mm) The manual lists .14 (3.556mm) as the service limit. My old plates were .145 (3.683mm) at 110K miles. My springs were within tolerance, but weren't all the same. At the rate of wear noted it looks like the original clutch might have gone 200K, but I'm replacing the plates and springs while I have everything opened up.
 
roginoz said:
Scooter: I measured my new replacement clutch friction plates. They're .15" (3.81mm) The manual lists .14 (3.556mm) as the service limit. My old plates were .145 (3.683mm) at 110K miles. My springs were within tolerance, but weren't all the same. At the rate of wear noted it looks like the original clutch might have gone 200K, but I'm replacing the plates and springs while I have everything opened up.
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Thanks Roger. Did you go with OEM plates? If so, did you order 22201-MCA-000 which is the outer friction plate? Only one of those compared to the six 22203-MCA-000 plates. I'm guessing that the outer plate is thicker than the other ones. Could you measure that one to verify this???
 
My measurement was on a new 22203-MCA-000. The parts guy said that he had ordered a complete set of friction and driven plates, but he omitted the front 22201-MCA-000 friction disk and the rear 22202-MCS-000 friction disk "B." I'm heading over to the Honda dealer this morning to order these two plates. I hate to delay completion of the job a few more days, but I really don't want to mix old and new parts. I"m sure it would work OK, but it's just the principle of the matter...
 
Another job for me that will get done this year. Quick tip: In order to hold the gasket in place, use spray on headliner cement, don't worry about over spray, engine oil eats this stuff with no after effects, spray the case part, then do the gasket, let it dry, then put the gasket in place. It won't move. Been using this trick for years on bikes and cars, it's like having an extra set of hands. Excess can be wiped off later with carb cleaner.
Probably go with Barnett, used them on the drag bike and on my old V65 Magna(T2) A little grabby when cold, but they took all the abuse I could give them(read: 10,000 RPM clutch drops)

Thanks for the write up, I studied the manual, didn't feel like removing the engine, you made this job a whole lot easier.
 
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Doesn't the dowels hold the dry gasket in place?
 
Ozzie said:
Another job for me that will get done this year. <snip> Thanks for the write up, I studied the manual, didn't feel like removing the engine, you made this job a whole lot easier.
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How did that go Ozzie? I don't see any follow up responses, my friend. I just bit off this task and it is going well, with help from this forum and the Honda service manual. The old clutch plates are sitting on the workbench after last night's work. I bought all new stuff but I will measure the wear and report out with pix, when I can get another few free evenings.

Harv
 
Yes, several times....the clutch slave cylinder can be removed/replaced without removing any of the exhaust system, or dropping the engine :rolleyes:
 
I just got done replacing my clutch after 239,000 miles, the clutch was still working great with no slippage. The only reason I replaced it is my water pump was leaking and I had to get in there anyway.

There is some great information in this thread but I do see a mistake when reinstalling the clutch plates they did not offset the last friction plate. You can see the correct way the plates are supposed to be installed in the before removal picture and then you can see the wrong way in the completed picture.

Here is a picture of my ST1300 clutch with all of the new friction plates installed.

PXL_20220203_205711609.jpg
 
Catmandu2 said:
Just curious as to what level of wear you discovered on your 239k clutch plates ?? And, did you replace the clutch springs ?? cheers, CAt'
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Glad you asked. My clutch plates were all in spec and the springs were just at the minimum. Yes I did replace the springs and judder springs. The clutch was still working great with no slippage.
 
Some valuable info there...
My friend's 1300 clutch is due (engaging late/at the very last bit of lever travel), hence an oncoming task...
Will also inspect/overhaul the slave while in there anyway...
OEM shop manual is around so we're good on all wear limit specs, torque values, etc...
 
In original post of this thread, I was wondering about this one deviation from service-manual. Manual says to put outermost clutch disc A into shallow slot on basket.

ClutchOuterDiscA.jpg

ClutchBeforeAfter.jpg

Seems like this was case with old clutch. When new clutch installed, outermost disc A was inserted into deeper slots along with other ones. Would this cause any issues?
 
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Yes, it was installed incorrectly.
The last one needs to be off set in the shallow notch.
You may want to check your bearing now also.
 
crazykz said:
Disassembly:
So rip off the tupperware and the front wheel/fender. That just makes it easier to work in there.
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The drain and remove the radiator. Be careful with the hoses to not damage them but you want to get them out of the way to pull the cover and while you're doing the clean up work.
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Now clean the thing up as best you can to keep dirt, etc. out of the engine once you pull the cover off.
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You want to start to break all the bolts loose at the same time but once they are broken loose remove the water pump cover. Use a 6-point 8mm socket. We had a 12 point that almost rounded off one of the bolts.
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Clean up all the crap, dirt, etc.
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There's a cleaned up version before we removed the cover.
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Here was the trick to breaking the cover loose. We removed all the bolts and then went all over the cover with rubber mallets seeing if we could break it loose. Once that failed we found a ridge on the bottom left corner of the cover. We used a ratchet extension and a rubber mallet to break it loose. Be careful to not pop the cover all the way off, just break it loose.
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This shows the right side where the water prop goes through the case. There axle of the prop goes into a whole in the middle of a chained gear. If you pull the cover you risk having the gear fall out and putting it back might be a pain.
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Stick a steel ruler in are more of an angle so that the ruler is going further back into the engine. If you can slide it along the water prop shaft you'll be in a position to keep the little gear from coming off. (thanks Buber)
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This shows what you have when you have the cover removed.
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Clean up was a big part of this job. We covered up things as best we could to keep dirt out of the engine. I let the gasket soak for a day with gasket remover but there's probably better ways to remove it. However I think the gasket remover made it easy to remove the gasket with a razor blade (thanks Scooter). There's other ways but Scott found a way to scrape it in a way that the blade did not cut into the aluminum. A brass brush works will but those types of things make a big mess and you don't want that crap in the engine. It's a pain but I think Scooter did a great job.
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Clean out the Valley drain. Mine was full of sand. Make me wonder what my alternator looks like. It's probably from hours of riding on snowmobile trails. Notice the angle of the pick I was using. That's where the hole is up to the V in the engine.
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Here's a shot after Scooter cleaned everything off.
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We removed the rubber gasket from the water pump cover and cleaned the corrosion off with a brass brush. Simple Green is a great cleaner for grease and dirt. Available at Wally World, etc.
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Removing the old clutch is as simple as removing the six bolts. We removed all of the plates and springs and measured them. There is only one, as far as we can tell, friction plate that is different than the rest and it's obvious because it has a bigger ID. It's the bottom friction plate in the basket. There are two other thing rings (forget the names) that actually sit inside the last friction plate. The flat one goes in the bottom and the angled one sits on top of that one. The two rings and the larger ID friction plate sits in the bottom all happy together.
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Here are the measurements of the friction plates and the springs. We had plates and springs that were out of spec. I did try to ride the bike two up with the clutch slipping so a lot of that may have been in trying to get it home which failed.
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Here's one shot of it back together.
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Here's another one showing the gasket and guides in place. There are two small guides on the cover and two large ones with new O-Rings for the coolant ports. All we used was a little Honda bond where the cases come together in the middle (there's a pic in the manual) to hold the gasket in place and seal it up. The cover will almost go on but you'll need to play with the water prop so that it goes back into that gear on the left side. It should NOT turn when the cover is on correctly. If it turns you don't have it in there so keep trying. The cover slammed right on once we had the guides lined up and the water pump shaft in the right spot.
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Overall not a hard job but I really liked having Scott there to lend a hand. He found the ridge to knock the cover loose and removed the gasket which I was dreading. The hardest part is getting in there to do it.

I do a good amount of two up riding and a lot of interstate. I also use the friction zone to control the bike and doing rallies adds to that. I also took a class a few weeks ago where we did nothing but friction zone slow control stuff. All of that combined probably shorten the life of the clutch. My last one was at 160K and was still on the original clutch.

Hope all this helps and THANKS for everyone's help.

Curt
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Thank you a million for this writeup! I just bought an '06 with 70k, and this is on the list. /r Brad
 
Mellow said:
Curt did an excellent job of detailing his clutch replacement so I copied his post and made a new thread/article for it here.
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Hi Mellow
Great write up and excellent pics.
Think I have a problem with my clutch. It works fine but there is a constant whine sometimes louder at times (loading up with power) coming from the front of the engine, especially in the lower gears around 2500 to 3000 rpm. Cruising in 5th gear, I hear very little to nothing. I plan a tear down to replace the thrust bearing the plates etc. Partzilla cannot find any reference to a "Clutch Kit". Is there a place you can recommend to purchase such an animal.They also have no reference to the "clutch outer" needle roller bearing. Service manual page 9-20. Thought I would change it as well as I am already in there.
 

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