Rear wheel won't turn after clutch bleed

[EskimoDave]

First off, thanks to Klavdy (and others) who's suggestion to reverse bleed the clutch from the clutch slave up using a big syringe and plastic tubing. This saved a lot of time. 

Now, I'll start from the beginning. About 2 weeks ago I went outside for what was going to be a ride on a glorious sunny day when I noticed the clutch lever had no resistance whatsoever. I'd been having a small leak of hydraulic fluid from just below the master cylinder for about a week or so and had ordered the rebuild kit from Randy at RPM (great fast service, even made it here before our postal strike, and quality parts) so this wasn't a big surprise nor was I too concerned, I'd just miss a few days of driving.

When the kit arrived I disassembled the master cylinder and used the rebuild kit and proceeded to reverse bleed the system as suggested, it worked amazingly well and in no time I was ready to go, or so I thought!   

Now the problem, once everything was back together I started the bike up, let her warm up, checked everything over since it'd been about 14 days since she was last driven and then pulled in the clutch lever, put her in first to go and ... she just died. I thought I'd left the kick stand down for a second but that wasn't it. I put her up on the centre stand and checked her again, this time I noticed that even with the clutch lever pulled in the rear wheel was really hard to move when in gear, almost impossible!

I'm stumped, I've gone over the whole process I did and made sure everything was redone just the way its supposed to be done, so I hope someone out there can give some advice! I was say that a little over a month ago I had the clutch slave off the bike to access the front sprocket as I changed the sprockets and chain but she ran great after that, shifted just like she always did! Again, I can't figure it out! Help! Please!       

[rktmanfj]

Sounds like either you have more bleeding to do, or the slave isn't fully seated, assuming you didn't pull out the pushrod and lose the little ball from the other end.

Randy T
Indy

[andyb]

Sticking clutch plates from sitting, if everything else checks out okay.

[Arnie]

Is it possible that you have the seal in the master cylinder backwards?  You'd get some resistance, but the clutch would not stay dis-engaged for long.  Any chance you trapped the wire that runs next to the oil filter and slave?  I believe this goes to the sidestand cutout switch.

Cheers,
Arnie

[EskimoDave]

rktmanfj -- I wonder if you are right about this, I'm going to go out and take a look at things again, maybe I did lose that bearing from the clutch slave. But the sequence seems off to me, it was about a month ago that I had the slave cylinder off and it worked in the meantime until this latest little bit of trouble, then I took the slave cylinder off yesterday to check around after I noticed the rear wheel was not turning. I am going to go and buy one of the bearings at the local marina regardless since its $2 and I can chat up the mechanics there. And I am going to check if I need to do more bleeding. Thanks for your reply, you've given me stuff to check on for sure!

andyb -- If everything else checks out how would I go about un-sticking the clutch plates. The bike did sit for about 7-10 days without moving so maybe this is it but it has sat for longer every winter without a problem. I know that because one thing happened once it doesn't mean the other couldn't happen this time ... but this whole thing is stumping me so I am going to check the plates. Thanks for your reply!

Arnie -- The seal seems fine, the lever has really good resistance right now and I was pretty careful to follow the rebuild exactly as the master came apart the first time. Also, like I was saying to rktmanfj, if it was the wire that runs to the kickstand that I trapped it should have popped up about a month ago I think when I did the chain and changed the oil. I am going to check this though, maybe it is trapped and it just took until yesterday to pop up. Thanks for your reply ... I think you were one of the posters who suggested the reverse bleeding too, what a time saver!

I'll let you all know what I find when I figure this out! Damn I hate missing prime riding days!       

[Dan Filetti]

andyb also indicated that you should check to nake sure that the wire that comes from the side stand switch, and runs next to the slave, and frequently gets pinched under a recently removed and reinstalled slave, isn't under the slave.  Check this.

This was my first thought.  Especially if it dies immediately with no load-shift forward against the brakes.

Dan

Edit: ARNIE said it, Not andyb...  I really should pay more attention...

[Adam FJ]

Also check that the rear brake has not siezed.

Adam.

[rktmanfj]

rktmanfj -- I wonder if you are right about this, I'm going to go out and take a look at things again, maybe I did lose that bearing from the clutch slave. But the sequence seems off to me, it was about a month ago that I had the slave cylinder off and it worked in the meantime until this latest little bit of trouble, then I took the slave cylinder off yesterday to check around after I noticed the rear wheel was not turning. I am going to go and buy one of the bearings at the local marina regardless since its $2 and I can chat up the mechanics there. And I am going to check if I need to do more bleeding. Thanks for your reply, you've given me stuff to check on for sure!

The ball is on the opposite end of the pushrod from the slave, IIRC, but you wouldn't be the first to pull the rod out and lose the ball, or start the engine with the slave off.  And no, I haven't done it (on the FJ), but I did reassemble my H2 clutch without the ball on 2 or 3 occasions...

Randy T
Indy

[EskimoDave]

Thanks everyone for the input ... the wires weren't caught in the slave or the filter housing, I checked and re-checked just to make sure! I also just checked the rear brake, its fine, not seized or anything! Thanks Adam. 

Now, I bought the $2 bearing from the Yamaha dealer and asked the mechanic what he thought might be the problem, he recommended everything that was said here too, nothing new really! So I brought the bearing home and removed the slave while the bike was on the side stand, gave it a bit of a shake after removing the push rod, nothing came tumbling, gave it another shake while leaning it way over, still nothing came out so I figured maybe this was the problem after all! In goes the new bearing and I put the slave back on! Now I think I'm really screwed as the clutch really won't disengage! The bike no longer dies when put into first but now it also doesn't move  So, it would appear as thought I have caused myself an immense amount of additional work! 

Ahh ... time to take a break I think before I go nuts thinking about this LOL! Thanks for everyone's help again, I'm sure this will get figured out by someone way smarter than me on this board!   

[Dan Filetti]

The ball is on the opposite end of the pushrod from the slave, IIRC, but you wouldn't be the first to pull the rod out and lose the ball, or start the engine with the slave off.  And no, I haven't done it (on the FJ), but I did reassemble my H2 clutch without the ball on 2 or 3 occasions...

Randy T
Indy

The only reason I make this point is I hear this a lot, but for me, I never even-so-much-as removed that pushrod when I replaced my slave, so I never got why that ball always seemed to be at risk of being lost on this job.  It's certainly not a required step to remove the pushrod to do the salve.

I'm still thinking he pinched the side-stand line. Maybe even broke the internals of one of them, it would behave exactly like this if so.  A quick continuity test, with the stand up and then down will tell if I'm right.

Dan

[SkyFive]

Dave,
I have my engine on the workbench so I went out and measured the clutch pushrod from the case to the end of the pushrod, there is almost exactly 2" of pushrod protruding from the case. Maybe this will help you verify if you have one ball, two balls or no balls.

[racerrad8]

Okay,
         You need to pull the ball bearing out that you installed since your is obviously there. Form there you need to bleed again. When you remove the slave from the engine, the amount of stroke it has from the spring pushing is out of the housing can be enough to drain the reservoir and allow air back into the system.

Bleed it again and hopefully the problem will be resolved.

Randy - RPM

[EskimoDave]

Ha ha ha ...

verify if you have one ball, two balls or no balls.

One ball, two balls or no balls!! At least something to laugh about! Thanks SkyFive for the help and the laugh!   

Thanks Randy, I'm going to try that! And thanks for being so fast with the parts order! The rebuild kit and fork seals are perfect!

[SlowOldGuy]

Can you really lose the clutch ball bearing when you remove the actuation rod?  I know of several people that have started the engine when the slave was off and shot the pushrod across the garage.  I don't recall any of them saying they lost the ball when this happened.  Just last week, I have the slave off and pulled the push rod out to clean the chain gunk off of it.  I didn't lose the bearing.  Does this really happen?

DavidR.

[rktmanfj]

Can you really lose the clutch ball bearing when you remove the actuation rod?  I know of several people that have started the engine when the slave was off and shot the pushrod across the garage.  I don't recall any of them saying they lost the ball when this happened.  Just last week, I have the slave off and pulled the push rod out to clean the chain gunk off of it.  I didn't lose the bearing.  Does this really happen?

DavidR.

I dunno, David, but I'm sure there was a post on the Yahoo group once where someone claimed to have lost theirs this way.  Since I never pulled mine down that far, I can't say with any degree of certainty if the thing even fits through with the pushrod or not.  I'll shut up now...

Randy T
Indy