125-200cc WR125 clutch adjustment

Hi, have some questions on clutch adjustment on a newly acquired 2008 WR125. I've had it for about 25 hours now and during this time I've slowly run out of clutch adjustment at the lever to the point where there is minimal free play at the lever (but the clutch doesn't drag), yet the clutch lever wont always fully engage the clutch when pulled all the way back to the 'bars.

it's worse when it's cold to the point where it needs some front brake to stop it moving forward under revs... Note that this is also my daughters bike so I'm trying to diagnose this with limited first hand experience other than a short ride when I was unable to replicate it, and asking her heaps of questions

It's also quite notchy to drop into 1st gear and difficult to find neutral at times

So after our ride day I've finally noticed that there is a second adjustment about mid cable, but being in the shed now I've decided to check further

- Transmission fluid is ATF Dextron III and is only 6 hours old
- The first few pairs of clutch plates that i took out where lightly stuck together and required a "little" force by hand to separate
- plates were all wet and oily, are within thickness tolerances and seem to be flat (but haven't tested this on a super flat surface)
- springs were within tolerance except one was 1mm longer than the others
- some very minor notching on the clutch basket, but it's only noticable by feel on about half of the fingers
- a few little burs on the basket fingers at the top which i carefully filed off with the basket in situ
- some minor rough bits on the outside faces of the clutch plates where it fits between the clutch basket fingers, so I carefully filed these smooth

So to me, everything looks OK and I'm not too keen on taking the basket off if I don't have to

Should I just reassemble and adjust the freeplay and ride & test, or is there something else that I should check?

Would a disassembly and reassembly like this change the freeplay at the lever at all? If it goes together like it was pre-assembly then I won't have the recommended 3mm free play at the lever if I want enough lever pull to fully engage the clutch

thanks

Hi, have you replaced the cable Did you mic the fiber plates? Mine were at minimum spec, but replaced the whole pack and cable = sweet!
You can also adjust the engaugment screw in the center of the hub, which is described in the manual and a number of posts in this forum.

6 hours is a long time for oil to be in your box remember it's doing alot of work, also atf isn't designed for clutches.
IMO I would drain that out and pull cover of clutch whip off the plate under the 6 bolts and check that your hub nut isn't backing itself off.
Stick 0w40 in an away you go hopefully.

Thanks guys. I havent replaced the cable yet, and it was one of my early assumptions that it was old and stretched (but visually in good nick), so I may do that now just to eliminate it as a cause. I've measured the plate thicknesses and they are well within spec. The centre bolt in the clutch basket is held in place with a retaining washer so should not have moved, but I'll search the forum and see what I can find

Some other research makes me think that the plates that I found a little hard to seperate by hand may have been the problem, as the clutch drag symptoms are similar. Not sure that fixing this will fix my freeplay issues though, of whether simply reassembling them will stop them sticking again

Ok, on checking my logs I haven't changed the transmission oil for 16 hours... Oops

Well that could be causing the excessive grippyness of your clutch plates. Swap it out!