I've had mine off hundreds of times, air works for me. Maybe do the first time by hand. We take our clutch off and change weights in a very few minutes.

I agree with warming up, but unless you know what your doing, and dzzy probably does, I wouldn't use torches. I think it will come off long before you have to go that far.

Nyroc, congrads on the new job.

 

I agree with sotgun. I take these clutches off just about every day at work and always use a 1\2 inch impact, if its really stuck the dead blow comes out. Never had any problems yet.

 

You guys are great! I'll try the hammer-and-wood method as soon as I don't have my 5-mo old sitting in my lap. Hopefully, this is all I need to know in order to fix my problem and be able to go riding on Sunday.

Oh, someone asked what brand of puller I was using. I decided to spend a couple of hundred on all the OEM Kawi tools that I'd need for any converter service. They were spendy, but I figure if I can service the unit myself, they'll pay for themselves before long. (New sheaves were priced at $650-$700 at my Alaska dealer.)

Thanks to all! [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img]

 

Frozen,
I have taken mine off a few hundred times as well as other peoples with no big problems. For the first time I heat it up to 200 degrees with boiling water any higher and you risk distorting the sheaves and beleive me they will go all kittywanka. Put a little grease on the tool slide her in and torque her up with an impact. If that doesn't do it hammer on the end and it will pop. When it does pop from being on that tight it will be loud and you will think you busted something but close inspection will show different. If in doubt use a bigger hammer LOL.

 

I borrowed a sledge from my neighbor. I'll let everyone know how it turns out.

 

True mastrblasr, heat can get you into trouble and sorry I didn't stress this more. Certainly oxy torch is last, last resort, and something GONNA get wrecked. That's why I suggested using it in stages. Still, when things are stuck heat is your friend. I have found that a clutch that wouldn't come off at -5F will come off easily at room temp. Nyroc: As far as air impact use goes, no manufacture I know of endorses air impact use on clutch or flywheel mounted on crankshaft, matter of fact, Bombard stresses this in their schools. The dead blow hammer whack is their method of choice. Still, I can't say I've seen damage I can directly attribute to removing of clutch with air impact. And I know many techs who do this. But, some things may not show up right away. And things like cranks, rods and clutches are very strong in the directions in which they are designed to take force, but may not be in other directions, or types of force. And how often can you find a cause for say, a fragged clutch or rod, when nothing is readily apparent. Then we say "must have been flawed from the get go"!! So, if you are paying me to work on your expensive toy, would you want me to follow the factory procedures? I think so. If I was a paying customer and I saw you air impact my clutch off, I probably wouldn't scream about it, but I'd probably not be back either. Again, I know people who do this regular (air impact) and it hasn't led to their demise yet, so use common sense (some people would say there is no such thing). Sorry Nyroc, gettin long winded and preachy and I hate when I do that. Checked out your knowledge base briefly and think it's a great idea and you Kaw owner's ought to check it out. Never tried the hot water trick suggested by a couple of our Canadian friends, but it seems like a pretty good idea to me.

 

Well everyone, thanks for the help in this thread. I got the clutch off using the wood-and-hammer method. I gave it a couple of good whacks and off it came.

I was able to clean the sheave surfaces, but I was unable to get the primary apart because I couldn't get the spider loose. I bought the special tools specified in the Kawasaki service manual, followed all their directions, but all I could do is grunt against the massive torque that was applied at (I presume) the factory. The manual specifies that the spider by secured with 205 lbs of torque. I was putting everything I have into getting this off (using 1/2 drive socket/ratchet), but I couldn't make it budge (I weigh 225 and bench 285 - not that it did me any good). So, with this being the case, I moved on to the secondary clutch.

The secondary went no problem. I disassembled the sheaves, cleaned them, re-greased the pins and seals, and installed the EPI Black Spring. Put it back on, re-installed my belt, re-installed the Primary, and re-checked my belt deflection.

On a side note, my belt width was 1mm less (per my gauge that reads in thousanths) than the service limit specified in the service manual; my 650 has 230 miles on it. My driving habits are to always drive in low range whenever traveling less than 15 mph or over any ground that isn't flat and trouble free. Given these facts, I'm of the opinion that this is exessive belt were for the miles on the bike. I'm going to see if my dealer will give me a new belt.

Does anyone have any clue about how to get the spider off the primary? I don't have air tools, but at this point I may take the entire assembly to the dealer and have them break it free. I'm thinking of buying the EPI Primary Red and can't do it without being able to get this thing apart. Would it be normal for the factory to impact these parts together?

 

If your putting a spring on your primary, just take the 8 10mm bolts out of the face of the clutch, it will spring out to you when the last bolt come out. You don't need to take your clutch off or apart to change that spring. When you put it back together, tighten bolts across from each other.

 

congrats AKJoe, Shotgun sounds like he makes good sense. But are they 10mm bolts or 6mm bolts with 10mm heads? Joe, never had one of that type of clutch apart but you may want to keep the spring compressed to the installed height while you remove these, or loosen real evenly. If the spring is under a lot of psi, and I'll bet it is, thread damage could be possible.

 

FrozenAKjoe wrote: Did you measure the belt using the method stated in the manual? It's a stupid way to do it, I can't understand why they try to measure the belt where there actually is nothing to measure to. I'm going to go to the local dealer and measure the overall width of a brand new belt at the widest part of the belt. Maybe Nyroc can post the width on his site after I find out what it is.