Hi All, I'm rebuilding the engine (everything else too) on my son's '91 Bayou 220. The steel secondary gear is riveted onto the aluminum clutch basket. I'm assuming there should NOT be any play or looseness here? Anyone have their's apart that can check for me? The factory service manual doesn't mention anything one way or the other. It looks like it "could" be designed to be loose, but I have no idea why...it doesn't seem to be "spring loaded" for cushioning. I don't want to buy a new clutch hub and it's loose like mine...don't want to put it back together if it's bad though either.

Thanks in advance!

 

I've seen some clutch baskets with loose rivets holding the gear, even brand new ones right out of the box. They make some knocking noise when idling, but no damage done that I know of because of this. For now save $ and just install it and see if the knocking noise is acceptable to you.

 

Thanks for the thought. I may call the dealer to see if they have one on the shelf and ask them to see if it's loose or tight. I could see where they might want them to be rubber mounted or have a rubber cushion, but mine doesn't seem to have any cushion in it at all. My curiousity would like to tear it apart for a looksee...but how dumb would that be...[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

I'll post if I find anything else out. If anyone knows 100% one way or the other, I'd appreciate hearing about it.

Thanks again!

 

I have just tore down my 300 and it is also loose. I'm sure Kaw intended for it NOT to be loose but I see no reason not to put it together as is, like Hayashi said may be some noise at low idle. I guess if you had a press you could repress each rivit, being carful not to crack the cage.

 

Got it back together and it runs great. But...the clutch rattles like crazy. I'm going to replace it when I can find a decent one. Call me cheap, but I don't want to spend $200+ on a new one. I don't know why Kawasaki doesn't give a spec or mention the looseness in the service manual. My son's Yamaha Blaster manual says if it is loose at all, replace it. I thought about repressing the rivets, but I think this is loose enought that it wouldn't do much good.

Thanks for the thoughts.

PS The shortened 400EX muffler looks good, sounds great and is definitely less restrictive. Kind of a pain to make it though. Sounds pretty good when the 11 yr. old is tearing around on it.

 

i think the clutch basket is rubber isolated from the gear ive tried to repress the rivets on my clutch and it didnt help at all. do you have any pics of the 400ex muffler that you modded and any info on how you did the mod

 

Just posted some pics of the muffler on "My Page". (once it's "approved")

 

that looks good on there. what kind of mods did you have to make to the inside after you cut out the one section? and im confused what part did you cut and rotated was it the headpipe itself or the cone part on the 400ex muffler

 

I cut the head pipe, reversed what was the rear section of the 220 headpipe and inserted it into the new muffler cone. I cut the inlet pipe off the 220 muffler and used it to extend my new "shorter" headpipe. I think you can see the new coupling location in the one pic. If I had to do it all over again, I'd section the headpipe a little further back to clear the airbox better.

If you're serious about doing this, my best advice would be this...cut the 400EX muffler in half right in front of the top hangar. There is a divider located in the front section that you will be removing. Grind the spot welds off the outer tube and the inner divider will seperate. I flipped the divider around and inserted it into the new front of the main muffler. You will need to modify some of the internal tubes slightly to make it all fit back together. Pound the 400EX top hangar straight and bolt this new stubby muffler into the front Bayou mount location. Once you get the 400 EX front off, you'll need to cut the front cone off at the factory weld where it attaches to the main muffler body. You will also have to cut the 400EX factory clamp and front bracket off. (toss these) After that, it's a lot of sectioning and welding to make it fit around the rear shock, frame, etc. then finish welding it all together. If you have a grinder with a cut off wheel and a wire feed welder, you can make about anything.

Probably alot of these instructions won't make any sense 'til you get into the project. There might be better mufflers out there to do this with, but my neighbor has a 400EX and I thought it would look cool with the stainless insert...so that's the science of how I picked the 400EX muffler.

I think there are a lot of stock mufflers on some of the 400cc + sport quads out there that will help the horsepower on some of the smaller quads. They might be restrictive for on the bigger engines, but they're pretty decent for an engine half that size. There are a zillion stock take off mufflers on Ebay that are dirt cheap. I paid $25.50 shipped for mine and it was brand new.

Good Luck!