Well I was out at Gordons well for New Years and I was having a great time on my Raptor so on Friday night I decide to race down the sand drags. Well I get about half way down the drags and then my bike just quits on me and it wont go into gear. I fried the clutch! So here I am sitting in the middle of Sand highway in front of hundreds of people and I am stuck dead in the water! Everybody starts looking at me and pointing, then I finally have to get of my bike and shamefully puysh my bike off the drags to the sidelines... at least someone helped me push it! I get towed back top camp by a HONDA! and my friend and I quickly figure out I have smoked the clutch. Well I run over to the ATV parts guy at the vendors and by a white brothers clutch kit for the bargain price of 100 bucks[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-disgusted.gif[/img] I also got some oil and coolant. So we tear my bike apart in the sand and attempt to put in the new clutch. We get it all back together and TADAH! it wont go into gear. Shoot!! I give up for a few hours and proceed to drink some beers by the fire. Then my friend and I decide that we have nothing better to do so we tear that sucker apart one more time. Well after much head scratching and consulting the "experts" in our camp we figure out what we did wrong the first time. Turns out the cover for the clutch plates appears to be able to go back on over the five screws in whatever position you want. However we figured out that there is only one correct position you can put the cover on over the plates where it engages the clutch plates properly. So We put her back together and BAM! we are back in business. I got to ride all night and the next day. One problem though, Now I am leaking oil out of the bottome of the clutch cover. Apparently that clutch cover gasket doesnt like to be taken on and off several times. The gasket was now bad. So I had to put a half a quart of oil in after everyride the rest of the weekend. So now I get home and realize I have to replace the gasket. So i get to tear the bike apart once again. I order the gasket and last night i took the bike apart and cleaned it thouroughly. I put it back together and now it works great and no leaks! Only took me about four hours, about half of that spent cleaning everything and getting all the damn sand out of everything. Well the bright side of this is now I am confindent in my ability to replace a Raptor clutch! It just took a few tries to get it right...[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

 

Sounds like quite the experience! Glad everything worked out for you in the end though. I helped a friend install a new barnett clutch in his raptor 2 weeks ago and was suprised how straightforward it was.

 

Well one thing about it that was a pain in the butt was the fact that you had to take off so many darn parts to get the clutch cover off the bike. I had to take over the brake lever, foot peg, my pipe, heel guards, and skid plate! I noticed on my buddies YFZ all you had to take off was the clutch cover....hmmmm much easier.

 

you make me look forward to my first clutch replacement[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img]

glad you had fun[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]

 

That is one thing I think Yami should do to improve new model raptors. Then we could buy the new covers for ours also.

 

ive been putting of putting a clutch in my blaster.... but now that i read this i think im just gona do it this weekend.... it would have suxed if you got sand in the clutch when you putthe new one in

 

i've put 5 clutches in my raptor and ive never had a problem like that, and i never knew that the clutch plate bolts would only go in once certain direction. the bolts are all the same you hve to line up the plae cover with the basket using the arrows, as far as is not going in gear, i think while you were playing with your clutch you hit the linkage and somehow got it back together on accident.

 

If you've put 5 clutches in your raptor then something is wrong whether its the plate, cable adjustments, or something else. A clutch should last you a season of racing if not more than one.

 

Hey RaptorRider, in the future, you could always use a little RTV as a temp fix when reusing an old gasket. Sure beats getting sand in you engine!