My bike 2008 TE has 3500 km on the clock, I bought it unseen when it had 2600 km on. I'm going on a trip next week and last night gave the bike a once over including an oil change. When I pulled the sump plug I notice that the oil was grey and there were steel particles on the magnet. The oil filter was very clogged and heavy. I then pulled the bag filter on the left, the one next the the neutral switch and I found one intact steel washer and bits of what looked like a second one laying in the cavity behind the filter along with a lot of metal shavings in the filter. The bag filter on the clutch side was not too bad. I checked the ACCT and found it to be 4 or 5 clicks. Does anybody have any idea where these two washers came from? They are +- 14mm outside dia and 7mm inside dia. I boxed everything up and put a new charge of oil and oil filter in and started the bike; the noise from the engine that I took for granted was normal on these bikes is a lot quieter. I plan to ride it for a couple of km and then drop the oil and have another look, do you guys think this is wise or should I do something else?
Right I found out where they came from. They are the cup washers fitted at each end of the damper springs in the clutch basket. It appears to be a really poor design and I would imagine that it must have happened on other 610 too.
i'd say you get lucky it did not take your motor out. Huskys oil system seems pretty good in this case. Is it something easily rectified?
It involves drilling the rivets out that connect the clutch basket to the primary gear, fitting the cup washers and then having a workshop press fit new rivets and join the thing back together. In the mean time I have to order the cup washers and rivets from abroad and it will take some time. Time will tell if any of the debris did any damage to the gears or bearings, but I don't think so. While I'm waiting for the parts to arrive I will ride it the way it is and hope for the best.
Heck I think you got outta jail on that one Mate. Good luck on the ride and let us know how it went sans the washers.
I have been following some threads on this issue and it seems to be quite a common problem, especially on the bikes with higher mileage. I recommend that everybody checks their bag screens on a regular basis looking for signs of these washers.
Fixed; 12 new cup washers made from En8 steel and case hardened. I had the cup washers slightly modified, made the flanges 1.5mm thick instead of the 0.6mm and radius-ed the previous square edge. Made 3 new 6mm steel rivets and joined the primary gear back to the basket. It appears to me to be a design error and I cannot see how it will not affect all the 610's.
Yeah not good at all. It would appear that no damage was done. Now that my trip is over I will remove the clutch basket again and check that all is still in order in there.
Hope you don't mind, I changed the title a bit and made this thread a sticky. I think it is quite important.
Eishhhh --glad no damage was done --could have been a biggy. Took mine off at 5,000km to check the torque and the keys due the vibration i picked up--luckily the vibration was only a loose engine mounting bolt--BTW dig the video you posted on the WD forum ---
While I had the clutch basket out I also checked the torque on the nut for the balancer shaft and found it to be rather loose. I removed it, checked the wood-ruff key and then refitted using Loctite and re-torqued. I posted a couple more videos from the trip on WD, we had a jol. The XT following me in the videos is also my bike being ridden by my brother-in-law who is visiting from France. Turns out he is an expert rider, only caught out a couple time in deep sand (good ol sand monster at work).
I hope no other damage was done. I opened my clutch the other day to check the repair and modification, all still well 2000ks later.
Well, it turns out this is not my issue. Apparently, before I owned it, someone installed an aftermarket clutch. The aftermarket clutch exploded and left bits and pieces of metal in the engine. Instead of properly cleaning out the metal, they stuck the oem clutch back in it and sold it to me. Now I have to split the cases, clean out the metal, replace the flywheel and stator because they have chewed themselves to pieces. How can people do things like this and still sleep at night?
DavidQ, I'm sorry to hear that. How did you find out about the aftermarket clutch? I presume you have no recourse or guarantee from or against the previous owner. Although my bike's problem turned out to be a relatively simple fix I have a sneaky suspicion that the previous owner knew about the debris in the engine but did not know where it was coming from and assumed the worst and therefore sold the bike. When I asked why he was selling he said he wanted to buy a MX bike. Shortly after selling to me he bought a Honda XR650L. Also it took him quite a few months to sell and during that time the bike never so much as turned a wheel. Some people just have no remorse, a friend of mine actually takes pride in his ability to sell bikes with problems. Actually I should rephrase that, he is a ex-friend after he tried to flog a problem to me. I hope you sort out your problems, and get to enjoy a really awesome bike.
