Brady Longmore
03-21-2007, 04:57 PM
This is a recap on my previous post, "Is This Normal" I decided to make a seperate thread because I thought some other newer Bergen owners could benefit from how I got it fixed and what was causing the problem. First of all thanks to everyone who offered help and advice via PMs, and of course thank to Chris B. for such a timely response to my question.
Here goes:
I went to remove the aluminum collar from the clutch output shaft at the top, and it was really stuck on there, even with the set screws completely removed. I had to pry it off the shaft with a screw driver. This didn't seem right to me, so I started to examine the collar, and noticed that on the underside where it had been in contact with the bearing it had grooves worn into it.
I put it back in position as it was originally, and noticed that because of the grooves in the underside the collar wasn't sitting flush and tight against the bearing block, which was allowing quite a bit of up and down play in the shaft itself. Which, also was allowing the side to side movement of the clutch bell.
So, I flipped the collar and put it on with the worn side now facing up, and voila! it seated just fine against the bearing block. After tightening up the set screws, I was happy to see that the slop was gone, and everything feels nice and tight.
I think that the collar must not have been snug against the bearing block from the beginning. Even just a hair of a gap allowed those grooves to be worn over time. After my last crash :oops: when going back to put that collar back on it would have felt as if it had seated at the bottom, when in fact it was the flanged edge of a lopsided groove that had hit bottom, not a nice flat smooth edge. Or perhaps the grooves were caused instantly from my last crash when the clutch output shaft was bent.
Hope others may be able to get something out of this. Personally I feel fantastic just knowing I caught this and avoided disaster. I can attest to the importance of meticulous pre / post flight checks.
Here goes:
I went to remove the aluminum collar from the clutch output shaft at the top, and it was really stuck on there, even with the set screws completely removed. I had to pry it off the shaft with a screw driver. This didn't seem right to me, so I started to examine the collar, and noticed that on the underside where it had been in contact with the bearing it had grooves worn into it.
I put it back in position as it was originally, and noticed that because of the grooves in the underside the collar wasn't sitting flush and tight against the bearing block, which was allowing quite a bit of up and down play in the shaft itself. Which, also was allowing the side to side movement of the clutch bell.
So, I flipped the collar and put it on with the worn side now facing up, and voila! it seated just fine against the bearing block. After tightening up the set screws, I was happy to see that the slop was gone, and everything feels nice and tight.
I think that the collar must not have been snug against the bearing block from the beginning. Even just a hair of a gap allowed those grooves to be worn over time. After my last crash :oops: when going back to put that collar back on it would have felt as if it had seated at the bottom, when in fact it was the flanged edge of a lopsided groove that had hit bottom, not a nice flat smooth edge. Or perhaps the grooves were caused instantly from my last crash when the clutch output shaft was bent.
Hope others may be able to get something out of this. Personally I feel fantastic just knowing I caught this and avoided disaster. I can attest to the importance of meticulous pre / post flight checks.