Holy thread revival batman! I have finally gotten off my ass and retouched all my re-installation pictures and generally sorted through the flotsam to find only the useful pics. So without further adieu, I will finish off this clutch replacement howto.
To start off with, I took a glory shot of my Akra exhaust. It's been debadged so it's just nice shiny titanium... the debadging occurred mainly as the original stickers were showing a bit of wear and tear and since the rest of the bike has been debadged I figured that it was fitting (only remaining badge is the Kawasaki on the tank). As you can see, a nice layer of dust has built up on it after the eons that I had to wait for the blasted clutch parts to arrive...
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These shots show the orientation of the various drain lines along the bottom edge of the engine and also the location of the oil drain plug. This is looking at the bike from the front right hand side. The big protruding finned section is pointing towards the front of the bike so this should give you some bearings. Now, don't make the mistake I did, which is to try and remove the plastic holders for the cables from the black cage. Instead, undo the nuts that hold the cage in place and take then ENTIRE cage off as one piece. If you so desire you can remove the plastic holders now but you don't actually have to.
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Now you will want to dump any remaining oil from the sump, which I had already done, hence the missing oil drain nut in the first of the last four pics. Once you are oil-free you can undo the sump pan. The only reason that I am dropping the entire sump is that I wanted to be sure that there weren't any errant chunks of metal floating about in there because I knew that something had snapped off. There are 14 bolts that you need to remove to drop the sump as you can see in the picture below:
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Make sure you take note of which nuts go where since you can see, they are DIFFERENT sizes. I have laid them out in roughly the right pattern but you would be better off noting them down yourselves.
You are greeted by this big funky yellow orange thingy once you have the sump out of the way . At first I thought I'd maybe sucked up a duck but it turns out this is just an oil screen, screening the oil before it's fed back into the engine from the sump. This is just held on by a tight fit, so just gently wiggle it off... BUT! don't remove it. Again, since I was paranoid about chunks of metal I cleaned it out which necessitated it's removal. You can also see back up into the engine in the second shot
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Here is the oil screen all cleaned up, I didn't find any chunks within. And that nasty looking hole had me getting my finger stuck in there as I dug around looking for metal... but thankfully since it's an OIL screen it didn't take too much effort to release myself. (i don't recommend poking your fingers into areas that you can't see either unless you know what is in there)
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I took this opportunity to clean out the sump & pan of the engine, as you can see... all nice and shiny now.
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Now, it's important that you clean off any residual gasket left on the mating surfaces. So go around each of these surfaces carefully... it doesn't have to be perfect but get rid of as much as you can. I use a couple of old clothes pegs since they are wooden and soft, you don't want to use anything metal as you DEFINITELY DO NOT want to put any gouges or scratches in these areas. Like I say, clean but doesn't have to be perfect.
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Here's the aftermath of cleaning the sump... oh the pretty swirly bits
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Remember those metal chunks that I kept banging on about... this is all I found. I just swished a magnet about in the oil drain pan and these pieces made themselves visible from the mounds of other gunk in there. More about this later...
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Now I didn't take any pictures of re-assembling the sump etc, short of this picture of the brand new gasket. As I mentioned, for the most part you shouldn't need to remove this section but if for some reason you do, just reverse the steps, easy peasy.
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As mike-s rightly pointed out (as does the workshop manual), you should soak your friction plates in your chosen oil before you install them. So take all your friction plates and bung them into a container that will hold all of them with a bit of room to move
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I've had very good experiences with Silkolene so far, I use Silkolene exclusively now... used it in my CBR929 and now my ZX10. It is also used in my RS250 as well (gear and 2-stroke oils) without issue. This is the oil I chose to replace my old stuff with... bit of a nasty price tag but only the best for the ones you love right?
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Here are the plates stewing, I suggest gas mark 5 for 20 minutes or until golden brown... but in all seriousness, just leave these to soak for a while.
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while you are waiting for the friction plates to soak through you can replace the oil filter. The next couple of pictures give you an idea of where to look for the filter. It's tucked up just behind the header pipes. You WILL need a filter wrench... or in my case it was a filter socket, a giant socket that you attach to your ratchet. The guys at the shop also suggested that if you just needed to remove the filter you could just hammer a big flathead screwdriver through the side of the old one and use the screwdriver to turn the filter... that's a little bit too agricultural for my liking and it doesn't help you install the new one either but each to their own I spose.
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Take the new oil filter, dip your finger in some of the NEW oil. Run your finger around the rubber o-ring on the filter, this ensures a nice seal when you reattach it.
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Screw the oil filter back in place and I recommend using a torque wrench to torque this to a correct setting of
31Nm or
23ft/lb if you are still operating in imperial.
Here is the offending item... the part that caused this whole drama in the first place. You can see the top pusher is missing the end... and as you saw in that photo a bit earlier there really isn't that much left of it. This makes sense when you think about it since you have the gearbox etc sitting right there spinning at all manner of speeds basically acting as a big set of grinding teeth.
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Below is the first spring plate... as I noted back when I disassembled the clutch this was NOT the first plate on my particular bike. I believe it was incorrectly put back together by the previous owner or service mechanic...
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Here is one of the OEM steels, all nice and dimpled, unlike the ones that came with the Barnett kit.
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I think the main problem just comes back to Barnett and that they manufacture parts as the orders come in. When I ordered it was a) the Christmas period and b) they were 'changing the stocking numbers' neither of which should be an excuse for a 4 month wait for parts but yeah... I'm happier to point the finger at Barnett rather than Serco.
But with that I will be back with more pics and the continued howto on replacing an 04 ZX10R clutch.
