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Old December 31st, 2019, 06:42 AM   #1
zhowfast
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First of my two issues

Hey y'all. Hopefully someone has had this same problem and can lend a hand... My clutch lever will not disengage (separate the transmission from the engine) I have tried both extremes (and everything in between) of both adjustment screws, the cable is brand new (not broken in the middle), and still for someone reason I can drop the bike in first gear (not running) and pull the clutch lever and the back wheel will still not spin freely. Am I missing something? The bike only has about 10,000 miles on it. The guy I got it from meticulously maintained it (as in he bought it new and now I inherited a fat stack of maintenance records) and I am sure it wasn't something he did to sabotage me when I bought it... The even weirder thing is I put about 200 miles on it before I had this issue. It got too cold to ride and the bike sat for about a month until another nice day came along, I juiced up the battery and then when I pulled the clutch in this happened... Are these bikes sensitive to the cold? Am I just not seeing something obvious? Any thoughts will be greatly appreciated.
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Old December 31st, 2019, 01:08 PM   #2
Ceeloo Yello
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https://faq.ninja250.org/wiki/My_bik...this_normal%3F

See the above link.
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Old December 31st, 2019, 01:47 PM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by zhowfast View Post
and still for someone reason I can drop the bike in first gear (not running) and pull the clutch lever and the back wheel will still not spin freely.
So just before you do this with transmission in neutral, you're able to spin back wheel?

Some cables have an adjustment in middle. Does yours have this?

Please post photo of your cable-adjusters at each end: handlebar-lever and down by clutch-arm.
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Old December 31st, 2019, 05:15 PM   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by zhowfast View Post
I can drop the bike in first gear (not running) and pull the clutch lever and the back wheel will still not spin freely. Am I missing something? The bike only has about 10,000 miles on it.
I assume you are trying it on centralstand ? It does not spin on mine freely either. You still need to put quite some effort to spin it. I think there is still some friction going on between the plates albeit not suffecient to pull the bike from a stop when the clutxh is desingeged and you mount the bike with engine running with the transmission in the first gear.
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Old December 31st, 2019, 11:21 PM   #5
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Check out GaryJ's review of 2008-12 new-gen 250.
https://www.ninjette.org/forums/showthread.php?t=2

In particular part 1 - 08 Ninja 250 First 50 Mile Real World Impressions. Where he mentions this comparison with earlier pre-gen bikes:

Quote:
THE CLUTCH:

One of the behaviors I’d gotten used to on the previous generation bike, was the “lurch” that was often experienced when dropping the bike from neutral into 1st gear …. especially when cold. It was an issue where the fiber and metal plates had a habit of wanting to not totally disconnect, despite the clutch being properly adjusted and pulled in fully.

I was pleasantly surprised that the new bike clicked into 1st gear without so much as a nudge; despite the bike being barely warmed up in the garage before heading out. Nice improvement!
I have both pre-gen and new-gen 250s and do notice this effect. Earlier bikes really do have stickier clutch that drags 1st-gear even with clutch-level all way in. I've tightened cable to reduce this effect, but it causes clutch to not engage and grab completely when lever is released.

OIL makes big difference. I notice if I let too long go between oil-changes, clutch gets grabbier. I find using Mobile-1 4T oil and 5k-mile OCIs seem to work well at keeping clutch from being too grabby. Heck you may even experiment with auto fuel-efficient oils with more moly & other friction-reducers and see if that helps clutch be less grabby, yet not slip. Perhaps 50/50 mix to start?
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Old January 1st, 2020, 08:01 AM   #6
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Thank you Danno,

To add to what have been already said. I analyzed the clutch adjustment and the only adjustment that is available is the slack which just ensures the clutch does not slip when engaged. If that is not done correctly and not maintained the clutch will start slipping burning oil and damaging the clutch friction plates.


The OP should just follow the procedure in the manual on how to adjust the slack and not to worry about anything else unless the bike does not disengage fully when the clutch lever is pulled in (bike still starts pulling with the rider mounting the bike in first gear). IF it does not it most likely mean that either the pull pin grove is worn out or the mating "hook" (for the lack of terminology) is worn and needs replacement.

There is no adjustment available to change the location of the engagement point or the width of the engagement (slippage) area. That can be changed only by modifying the profile of the lever that pulls the clutch engagement pin. I.e. by welding some more material on it and machining a different profile.

BTW for me , coming off Ural motocycles that I rode in my teen years the engagement on these bikes feels pretty smooth Urals being replicas of BMWs and having a dry clutch and crude implementation on top of that had much harder bang when the first gear was engaged.

For the record I used Motul 5300 (semi-syn) in mine.
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Old January 1st, 2020, 12:21 PM   #7
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Thanks for all the help y'all! I haven't had time to go dive deeper and try out some of the things mentioned in this thread yet... the holidays and my slight hangover from last night are taking up my time right now... I will 100% post with an update ASAP. Thanks again for the help and quick responses!
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Old January 1st, 2020, 01:27 PM   #8
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For reference, here's how I have my clutch cable adjusted.

top:


bottom:
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Old January 1st, 2020, 03:35 PM   #9
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Ok guys. I am about to get real specific... So I got out to the garage today and fired the bike up. I adjusted the clutch lever to the same general place it was when I bought it. I still had the same issue or the back wheel not spinning freely when the clutch is pulled in so I just let it sit there idling. It came up to temperature and my first thought was to just drop the S.O.B in to gear and see hat would happen. Glad I didn't. I shut it back off and (despite the bike warmed up and giving the oil some time to flow around some potentially stuck together clutch plates) I still had the same issue... So one last time I fired it back up and noticed the back wheel spinning fast as the bike idled high. I thought that was a good sign and I decided to make sure it was the engine spinning the wheel and not just the semi-high idle RPMs. I pressed the back brake and the bike almost died. I repeated the the same thing again with the same results. So the (obviously) the clutch and the engine are working together somehow... What does this tell me? I am nearly 100% sure adjusting the cable won't do anything to help the issue. I took some pictures (hopefully attached correctly to this post) I noticed a space (that seemed abnormal to me) between piece that the clutch cable attaches to (at the end by the clutch basket cover/right side engine case). Is that space normal? If I take the cable loose and spin that piece 90 degrees towards the back of the bike it becomes flush with the case. I am not at all sure if that is a potential issue... I may be way WAY over-analyzing this... but I really appreciate the help!
Attached Images
File Type: jpg ninjaflush.jpg (85.4 KB, 9 views)
File Type: jpg ninjaraised.jpg (91.2 KB, 7 views)
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Old January 1st, 2020, 04:29 PM   #10
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The space is abnormal, the lever should be flush. If it is not rod was not seated properly and will not engage the head if the pin that pulls the plates away. What I woukd do and the way I read it you might have done it losen the cable completely (you might need to take the oposiye side of the cable out of the clutch lever near the handle) so its free rotate the lever counterclockwise 180 degree push it all the way in and rotate back while maintaining the configuration of the cable attachment piece and the cable once done try to pull the lever out of the cover, itshould not go. Assemble the cable back and adjust the slack.
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Old January 2nd, 2020, 06:49 AM   #11
zhowfast
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Thanks for that tidbit SibSerge! I'll post back with results...
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Old January 3rd, 2020, 01:09 PM   #12
zhowfast
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Bad news... I tried to rotate and the realign the rod that pulls the clutch plates apart (as suggested by SibSerge). It didn't necessarily go flush against the little indent where it slides in to the right side case... I went to crank the bike back up and heard a little jingle from inside the right side case... like a piece of metal broken off... it got worse when I rev'd the bike so I shut it off immediately... looks like I'm bike to have to drain the oil and look inside... hopefully that will help me solve this issue... anyone had good luck cutting out their own gaskets from whole sheets of gasket paper? How about a food brand of oil and filter? I think that's the route I'm going to choose. I'll post pics of what I find inside...
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Old January 3rd, 2020, 01:36 PM   #13
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You can carefully slice off gasket with razor so it stays all on one side or other. Then use Toyota FIPG material to fill gaps when re-installing.

Gap is actually OK, there’s O-ring in hole. When shaft spins from cable pulling, shaft gets pulled inwards anyway.
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Old January 3rd, 2020, 03:36 PM   #14
zhowfast
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I finally realized that gap must have to be there... I tried for a really long time to make it sit flush. Anyway... Hopefully I'll have time this weekend to get it torn apart and reuse the gasket with a little help from the Toyota form in place gasket or something similar. Thanks for the help...
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Old January 3rd, 2020, 06:43 PM   #15
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You're welcome! Yamabond-4 also works well. Avoid Yamabond-5 which is silicone and slithers out easily.
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Old January 4th, 2020, 01:33 AM   #16
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While you have cover off, inspect sides of fingers on clutch basket. They should be perfectly straight and smooth. If they’re notched with steps, these could be preventing your clutch plates from sliding apart easily. If not too bad, you can file them so edges are straight. Otherwise you’ll need new clutch basket.


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Old January 29th, 2020, 09:58 PM   #17
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Amazon sells an oil change kit with a kawi filter, oil, gaskets and crush washer for like 28 bucks. I'm not an OE all the time guy but it's a pretty good deal, you'd pay that much anywhere unless you're buying in bulk. It might say it's for an 08 to 12 but they use the same.

Last futzed with by Nextbesthing; January 29th, 2020 at 10:02 PM. Reason: I forget things sometimes.
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