Brad The Bike Boy: Ducati: The result of aluminium clutch basket and steel plates

Friday, July 24, 2015

Ducati: The result of aluminium clutch basket and steel plates

When I first saw this 2003 749S at 27,000km, I inspected the clutch and found it had a steel plate set (meaning the friction plate base material is steel, not aluminium) with an original aluminium basket. But there wasn't a huge amount of wear, and it as still working, so it was left as was.

I saw it a couple of weeks ago at 58,000km and this was the result. I forgot to take a photo of the plate tangs, but they they were also very worn. If it was a bigger engine I expect this would have happened sooner.

It wasn't this bad at 42,000km, when I last had it out. At that point I replaced the pushrod and needle roller bearing due to wear, and I had to do them again with the basket at 58,000km. Maybe the worn basket and associated movement allowed the pushrod to move around, but it seemed rather odd that it had done the pushrod in such a short time.
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