748 Clutch Worn?

They look new by looking at the tabs , maybe they are stacked wrong

 

Without taking all the plates out, no it doesn’t look worn. It does however look like it’s been ridden in the wet and left to stand as it’s rusting. If you use the new search facility you might be able to find a picture of a clutch posted several months ago where the basket is most definitely knackered. Andy

 

Rust aside, the basket looks OK with not much wear.

With the engine off and clutch lever pulled fully in, will the clutch spin freely by hand? because any drag you feel is going to be greatly increased when the engine's running.

I've tried numerous variations of plates and pack thickness and found that a pack of no more than 38mm with no dished plates works best, especially for finding neutral whilst stationary.

 

Try bleeding the clutch

 

I've just replaced the basket and friction plates on mine and the wear on yours is nowhere near as bad it was on mine. Clean it out and check the stack is standard, i.e the innermost plate is plain not friction. The 'quiet' clutch mod, i.e. the one where the first plate becomes a friction plate is, IMO, mechanical bollocks. The first plate should not be a friction plate, jammed down into the bottom of the gaps between the basket fingers. It becomes an 'open' system, with the pressure plate force acting against the basket, instead of the hub. Bad news for bearings, I expect. Or, if the gaps are 'too deep', the first friction plate has no force on it at all and the first plain plate is up against the hub where it should be but the stack height is now too low. I'm going to have a jam sandwich and calm down now.

 

There’ll be an alarm going off in certain quarters and you’ll be subject to severe beating by cliche. Hold on tight

 

Definitely bleed the clutch fully first. Is the slave cylinder standard or aftermarket ? The aftermarket ones usually make it harder to select neutral when stationary. If you have adjustable levers alter it to maximum span that you can reach and try it out. This usually helps. Also there is a small adjuster screw on the lever that pushes the piston in and can be tweaked a bit also.

 

Mate, you should see the one on my old 900ss, it looks like a rat has been knawing on it! Your one looks in pretty good shape.

The tangs wearing, really only affects the smoothness of the take up and how much rattling it makes when in neutral, not the wear of the clutch plates themselves.

To check them you'll need to remove, clean and measure the stack height against specs and/or the amount of friction material on each driving plate.

Your problem may be as simple as the clutch is low on fluid or needs bleeding.

 

When the tangs and basket get really bad, the rattle is there on a neutral throttle in gear as well.
Slipper clutches appear to be more critical but with a conventional clutch, the main thing is to not exceed the maximum stack height. In an attempt to stop my clutch dragging really badly, I ended up with a stack height in the low 30s but stuck with it as it gave such a light action (less spring pre-load) and amazingly, doesn't slip, despite the lithium grease
The drag in my case turned out to be due to the new plates binding in the basket slots as they expanded, not that I'm suggesting that's the problem here.
As said, clean and derust the plates first, if that doesn't work, then bleed as well.
Imho, friction material is unlikely to wear significantly before the tangs and basket get too knackered to use. Derek on here once got well over 30,000 miles out of a clutch before the friction material wore enough to force replacement of the friction plates but his tangs and basket were still fine - for a reason...

 

Actually, just re-read the original post and you say it's a new clutch, so it may well be the friction plate tangs binding in the basket slots that's causing the drag.
In my case, it was fine when cold but got worse and worse as the engine warmed up.
You don't need to ride it to check it, you can do it in your garage.

 

Do as @Chris says and remove the cover to check the action.
When testing, don't bother refitting the cover and riding, leave the cover off and test it for getting neutral in the garage but do leave the door open...

 

The plates and basket look ok. Looking at how close the last friction plate is to the edge of the basket, I'd guess the pack is too thick, so you're not getting enough disengagement when the clutch is pulled

 

Yes. When the slave piston pushes the pushrod to lift the pressure plate, if the top plate is too high, then the plates can't separate enough for the clutch to disengage fully. There is a risk of the top plate popping out of the slots as well.

Also, when the pressure plate lifts, the plates have to separate on their own - there is nothing positively pushing or pulling them apart, except perhaps the dished plates.
Therefore any binding between the tangs and slots will stop the plates from separating properly.

Nelly will of course be using genuine Ducati parts but many people use aftermarket plates and these can bind. I have used both Newfren plates and friction plates designed for a Suzuki and both of these caused binding problems. My basket and friction plates are aluminium though and yours are steel. I don't know what difference that makes, maybe aluminium expands more or more quickly than steel. If your clutch drag worsens as the motor warms up, I would strongly suspect binding.

If not, then there are a number of things that can cause it:

As Nelly suggests (and he should be listened to), it is likely to be an excessive stack-height.

Rust on the plates could be stopping the plates from clearing properly.

There may be air in the hydraulics which needs bleeding out.

you may have insufficient span on your brake lever to fully lift the pressure plate - adjust so you have a millimetre or two of free play only but you must have some.

You may have an aftermarket slave which gives a lighter lever action at the expense of range of movement of the pressure plate.

The good news is that the Ducati dry clutch is a pleasure to play with and can very quickly be disassembled and re-assembled.

I use an electric screwdriver for both cover and spring screws.
Lay the cover screws out in order because they are different lengths!

The top plates come out easily but get progressively harder as you get down the stack. Some people use a metal tooth probe to get them out, I recommend one or two magnets on telescopic stalks (Halfords)
As you take each plate out, hang it on the footpeg, so last out first in etc.
When you tighten the spring screws, nip them up very gently. The springs will stop them loosening and its easy to strip the threads

Good luck.

 

For what value (or controversy/confusion) this might add:

I recently replaced the clutch on my bike with a new OEM basket, drum and plates (a restoration project).

I have the OEM slave and master cylinder, system was bled.

I noted the Haynes manual DID NOT reflect the clutch plates I received. So I asked my local Ducati workshop WTF, they told me to burn my Haynes manual and then gave me this stack instruction (from the inside out to the pressure plate)
2 x 2mm steel plates
friction plate
1.5mm dished plate
friction plate
steel plate
Repeat friction and steel plates

The result. My clutch is quiet, works perfectly, I can shift easily, clutch is not too heavy at all (but I don’t have any traffic to sit in or traffic lights to wait at, so maybe it is no better there), I can find neutral easily.

I second what others have said. Make sure the system is bled perfectly. I would clean all of the corrosion off the basket, and confirm the drum and plate tabs are clean too. Then if they are not OEM plates make sure the tabs fit in the drum perfectly, if they are not OEM they are probably a little bit too big.

Good luck

 

on reading this thread thoroughly I was suddenly reminded of :-



Good luck chunks, hope you solve it.