Hi all, looking for some worldy advice please. Got the dreeded starter clutch spragg not catching happenning. - First a bit of background, for quite a while now I've also had rough idle and have since balanced throttle bodies, new plugs, new air filter, new spark leads (ngk from motoelect), new crankcase breather and vac. plugs on TB's. All to no avail. Still had lumpy idle with rev's going up and down. Finally deduced that the timing chain could be the problem, with my bike approaching 170'000klms ( I bought it at 92K) I bit the bullet on the weekend and did the timing chain refurbishment.
Pleased to say it went well, and the idle is once again smooth with no rev fluctuationsm and the old girl running much sweeter!
This is one of my queries........
Now I did have to drop the idle speed with the new chain, it was up around 1100rpm. But after riding into work (90klm's) and engine quite hot from being stuck in traffic at the end it was idling at almost 1200rpm. I switched it off and immediately heard that the spragg didnt seem to make that catching sound as the engine stopped rotating. So I had to push start. Once running again I rode around the block and turned it off, but leaving it in gear and letting out the clutch slightly to load the engine up to get the revs down to about 900rpm before turning off. As soon as the engine stopped I could clearly hear the spragg make its grabbing sound. I have found that if I pull up and turn it straight off I am more likely to have the clutch not engage, then if I let her idle for a little while before shutting down. So now I am wondering if the idle speed could have any effect on the spragg clutch workings???
I really dont want to have to pull the engine down to replace the clutch.......I've tried using an engine flush before changing oil, used good deisel oils etc.
The only thing I havent tried yet is full synthetic. Do you think this may be a help? Oil gets changed usually within 3 months as I do quite a few klms to and from work, and when I pulled the timng chain cover and the valve cover off they were clean as a whistle.
Sorry for such a long winded post...........but if anyone has got a suggestion I'd be over the moon!

cheers

If the idle speed isnt stable you must have some leak in air system. Engine get a false air through leak.

I had a problem with sprag clutch when I put wrong battery with 180 crank amps, insteda 330 which is reccomended.

Regards

Have you tried putting it in 5th gear and rocking it back and forth I have heard it can break up some of the grunge that gathers.

Hi Rick and Nino, yep, had to do the rocking in gear dance several times in the last month...........usually at a servo when I've stopped to fill up, with people looking and wondering what the hell I'm doing.... I wonder whether as your flying along the road (well, I'd like to think I am...) that oil to that area gets a bit sparse, and when stopped and left to idle for a little while, the oil returns to that area a bit?? Its got me miffed, before I changed the timing chain it was idling a bit rough, so I adjusted it up to about 1100rpm, but then the spragg symptoms became worse. Now the idle is back at about 900 and nice and smooth it hasnt happened for a few days, but I do now always let it idle for a while before shutting down. Maybe I should try another engine flush, then switch to 5-50w Synthetic for a while and see if that helps???????
The Spragg symptoms and the idle speed may of course be totally unrelated, but idling for a period after a long run seems to be of help.......
Ever heard of a good method to get the gunk out without having to pull the engine down?

cheers

I can't imagine how the idiling for a while would help but engines do some strange things.
There was some talk of oil shortage to the sprag on the motobrick site a while ago and it set me wondering if it is a shortage of oil and the resultant heat build up that causes the sprag to get clogged up in the first place.
As for a fix I only know of the high detergent diesel oil and flushing or pulling it apart to fix it. Mind some of the sprag clutches do just fail due to wear and the turning backwards at stop doesn't do them much good. My K100 never did that but the K75 does it at almost every stop.