Last year and 1000 miles ago, I rebuilt my 1935 Es2 gearbox and clutch. When stripping clutch found all the friction plates had there tangs worn down to a couple of mm. Had done about 4k miles since purchase of bike and they were the old type with the friction inserts. Went out last weekend for ride and clutch started to slip. Thought it might be oil on plates so stripped it down only to find all the tangs had worn down to nothing. I didn't replace the rubbers in the clutch centre as looked like new when rebuilt 1000 miles ago . I checked a diagram in the Edward Frank's book and according to this it looks like the rubbers are in a different position than mine, i.e. the large ones are where the small ones should be according to this diagram. If indeed this diagram is accurate. Also the primary chain had lost 2 of its rollers that had split in half and were in bottom of chain case. The chain was replaced 4000 miles ago approx. So the question is, why is this happening? Pretty desperate for advice as need to get it on the rode to ride. Many Thanks.
The large rubbers should…
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Chain rollers
Hi Nicholas
I purchased a new primary chain many years ago, fitted it to my Norton Mercury and set out from Poole to Thruxton, I never made it, terrible noise from the engine. When I got back I removed the chaincase and out dropped loads of split rollers. The cause upon investigation was brittleness due to incorrect heat treatment. If at all possible I would take the chain back to the supplier for replacement. Incidentally I have had the same thing happen with new valve springs.
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David , thank you very much…
David , thank you very much for that information. The rubber placement issue was particularly useful. I hope what you said about the plates is correct and a new set from a different supplier will cure the issue.
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The large rubbers should take the drive force and the narrow ones take the override. But if tangs are wearing away, it sounds more like the wrong material used to make the plates. They should be too hard to wear rapidly. Unless (possibly?) they were case hardened, so when the case wore out the rate of wear accelerated. Probably new plates will solve the wear issue.