OH S**T

yellowstorm · Post by **yellowstorm** » Sun Aug 24, 2008 6:33 pm

Decided to save myself a few quid today by replacing the clutch on my 97 Storm myself. That was the first mistake.

Thought I'd beat the rain and got up early(ish) to get started.

Set up all the bits in the perfect working environment (side of the road) and got started.

Drained oil, coolant and removed the water pump cover, clutch cover (with a few heafty whaks) and clutch plates. Put the new clutch plates in which had been nicely marinading in fresh oil. All ok so far.

The old gasket was a pain to scrape off so did most of it and though 'sod it, that'll do!!!' You can probably see where this is going.

Put the new gasket on (no gasket cement) and put the covers back on, torqued up the bolts and filled the oil. Still going well, no leaks.

This is where it started to go horribly wrong!! Pouring the fresh coolant in, 1L, 2L, 3L. Wandered where it was all going. Bent down to look and saw a small seep coming from a small (but perfectly circular) hole in the front of the clutch cover - BUGGER.

Worse still, on looking at the oil level window I saw a not so lovely pink liquid that looked identical in colour to the coolant i'd just poured in. BUGGER BUGGER BUGGER.

Took the sump plug out and a gush of coolant followed by some rather jellyfied pink oil.

Who's bloody stupid idea was it to house the water pump in the clutch cover

It's a good job i never started the engine!!!

WHAT DO I DO NOW ???????

Will the coolant have knackered my new clutch plates??

warby221 · Post by **warby221** » Sun Aug 24, 2008 6:53 pm

Lucky you didnâ€™t start the thing

Donâ€™t worry about the clutch plates the coolant will have run down the inside of the clutch cover in to the sump.

What you have to do now is flush the sump out with flushing oil or cheap engine oil
My own preference would be to have the sump off and the oil pickup to give it a good cleaning out with some engine cleaner to make sure no emulsified oil is left
If you decide to take the sump off thereâ€™s no gasket its just sealed with sealant and held on with a load of bolts in the bottom it comes off after removing the front part of the exhaust with the engine still in the bike ok

Yer going to need a new gasket for the clutch cover though and a exhaust gasket if you decide to have the sump off

yellowstorm · Post by **yellowstorm** » Sun Aug 24, 2008 7:03 pm

Thank you for that, doesn't sound quite as scary as I first thought. Will just need to find a new clutch cover coz mine's got a hole in it.

yellowstorm · Post by **yellowstorm** » Tue Aug 26, 2008 10:42 pm

Got to the root of the problem. When I put the clutch cover back on, i hadn't lined up the water pump impeller shaft with its drive sproket. On tightening the cover, this in turn seemed to push on the impeller shaft and push out the mechanical seal.

This is what caused the water to pour into the sump.

Took all the clutch plates out as a precaution and as suggested, they were uneffected.

The hole is meant to be in the clutch cover.