Snatch, no not that...this,

[Phlipsy]

Had my 1998 for a week or so now, just getting to know the old girl. The bike is mint but anything like a fast pull away and the clutch snatches like crazy, front end jumpin' and bumpin' all over the shop somewhere between a wheelie and a stall start. This normal?

[Wicky]

You could try changing the fluid and bleeding the clutch to see what happens. If the fluid gets cruddy and low the bite point will change to closer to the handlebar when you let out the lever resulting in a snatchier feel. Also check out the slave cylinder bore and seal as these can wear/fill with grit buggering up the seal.

Search for: bleeding clutch

to find previous threads on useful hints & tips for this procedure.

[Steve6088]

As far as I'm aware this is pretty normal. Mine has always done it despite a number of attempts to fix it.

I think the answer is to ride around it.

[AMCQ46]

This clutch grab [it makes a screech noise then locks] has been discussed in many threads, and a lot of us have the problem to a greater or lesser extent, and tehre is a lot of theories and no real conclusive root cause or solution.

My bike had the problem for most of the10 yrs I have owned it. I say "most" as I only noticed it after a few yrs, but only if I was doing a high rev get away, but with the torque of the storm that is not needed in normal riding, so I might have missed it.

It was pretty bad on my bike in that anything over 3500revs would make it grab, but in all that time I rode round the problem as none of the fixes worked.
Tried cleaning the pushrod
tried bleeding the clutch
Inspected the clutch basket for wear marks
inspected the plates for burning, wear or warping

all of that didnt help, so I was left with the Tony.mon conclusion that it could be the main shaft bearing behing the clutch basket as the last option, but I didnt like that idea as it requires a full engine split to replace.!!

Anyway I managed to get hold of a spare engine, and my plan was to do a full swap over the winter so I could also do a strip down & some other mods to my original engine, and with the other engine fitted I could see if that fixed the clutch as well.

That may still happen,. but as a quick check, I took the full clutch basket out of my spare engine and swaped it into the bike a month ago, and the grabing is 100% gone!..........I can slip the clutch at all revs and it is perfectly linear

I looked at both clutches on the bench before I swapped, and if anything the one in my original engine was better......less wear marks, and less wear on the plates, but the one visual difference I saw was the actuating tophat/spacer thingy. The one in my original clutch had lots of radial scuffing marks where it had clearly been catching against the output shaft when the 2 parts were doing very different speeds.

the photos are in this link http://www.haymouth.co.uk/phpBB3/viewto ... 95#p172291


Also look here http://www.haymouth.co.uk/phpBB3/viewto ... 67#p135326.

So if you cant ride round it, and you have tried the obvious solutions above, I suggest you take the actuating top hat out and check it for these marks and have it polished down and see it that helps. if not that then get a full basket from a breaker and swap the lot....but you have to know if the bike it came out of had a good clutch or not!

[Phlipsy]

Bloody he'll........ So, ride round the problem it is then.
Thanks lads

[tony.mon]

A bit of an update on my theory that it was the large bearing behind the clutch....
I replaced the bearing while doing a rebuild last winter, and when run in I found that even with the new bearing I had clutch grab, so this may have been a blind alley.
According to the racing boys in Thundersprint, converting to a cable clutch actuator, like the one on the Varadero (almost the same engine) fixes the problem.

I have the parts to do the conversion; haven't got round to it yet, though, but will over winter.

But I have a feeling that the problem lies in the master cylinder- more to follow once I have done some more research, fitted some bits and tried it.