V 3 clutch plates

vincenttwin

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Help any one know what clutch plates fit the V3 clutch's , Is it an Suzuki ,if so any one know what Barnet plates fit .

thanks
Peter
 

Mark Fisher

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Peter, I have two of these clutches and they take kawasaki ninja plates I have still got the bag with the part number in my workshop, I will try to find it when I get home from work.
mark fisher
 

vincenttwin

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Mark
That would be great thanks, mine is making bad noises when they get a little warm , I am running it dry .

cheers
Peter
 

Albervin

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Peter, I run my dry and have done so for the last 9 or 10 years. Every year I take our the plates and give them a clean. I only wash the metal plates (in petrol). I then soak the friction plates in ATF. Before fitting I allow the plates to lightly "drip dry". The clutch does make a noise now and again when attempting fast getaways, up hill with a full load. It then settles down and all is well.
 

timetraveller

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So far as I know, everyone over here in the UK who uses these clutches has ended up running them wet. The early instructions that came with the clutches said that they could be run wet or dry but experience has proved otherwise and I am told that the latest fitting instructions only recommend using them wet. Albervin must have more patience, and persistance, than most of us. Local experience is that if run dry the clutch becomes more 'grabby' than the worst Vincent clutch ever.
 

Mark Fisher

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Mark
That would be great thanks, mine is making bad noises when they get a little warm , I am running it dry .

cheers
Peter
Peter, my apologies, I got so wrapped up in frustrating leaking BSA petrol tanks last night that I forgot to look for the part number, I'll do it at lunch time. I would not recommend running the V3 dry, I burned my plates up in a very short time on my egli when I first got it. I believe that if the plates are soaked in oil for a day and then fitted you can run dry as long as the housing is drilled, vented or left off to keep things cool. However, for the last four years i have run mine wet on the egli, the only issue being that you need to use the stronger springs or eventually there will be a bit of slippage when accelerating hard. Basically to run wet all you do is leave out the big seal in the case behind the clutch and drill a couple of holes near the bottom of the clutch chamber so that it can drain. Neal Videan can provide proper instructions, although i may still have the paperwork that came with one of my V3s.
thanks
mark
 

peterg

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Howdy chaps,

If the V3 is an evolution of the original superb Ducati-based V1 (as sold by Coventry Spares in the U.S.) then requiring one to run it wet is almost a retrograde step as the V1 performs superbly, stores for long periods without the plates compression welding themselves together from exposure to lining laden oil residue and has no performance variation between hot and cold.

But, it must be carefully setup for uniform pressure plate lift off and if one wants flawless engagement, dynamically balanced before installation. As your PD22 and 24 wear, an out of balance assembly will cause the PD20 and clutch to wobble and part of the sound you here on aggressive clutch engagement is the assembly aligning itself to the clutch hub. This can also be felt as a shudder through the chassis.

Thankfully our machines operate with the chain (force) inline with the bushings rather than offset (vintage Indian twins) so bushing wear issues are not amplified.
 
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Mark Fisher

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Peter, the kawasaki part number is 13088-1051. Peter G is correct of course about lift etc and this applies to the std clutch also. If the bushes in the chainwheel are worn it will also have a detrimental effect on the pd15 generator drive....unfortunately i know this from recent experience on my shadow. The bushes I put in about 10k miles ago were found to be quite worn causing various issues......Reason : not oilite like they should be. Something to check.
mark
 

Monkeypants

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Ive never heard of a v1 but there are plenty of vee two clutches out there. Vee two is the name of an Australian company that mainly sells aftermarket performance parts for(v2) Ducatis. I suspect that the owner had a problematic Vincent clutch and decided to do something about it by coming up with his own design.
Neal Videan told me that many years ago he worked with the vee two company and had a falling out with the owner.
He told me that he named his clutch the v3 as a sort of a play on the Vee two name and in part to annoy the owner of vee two.

I have a vee two clutch in my Oz Rapide. It came with the Ducati style sintered bronze plates. This is a dry set up. When the bronze plates were clean and freshly deglazed, it worked great.
After about 4to500 miles, the bronze plates would develop a small amount of a black coating at which point the clutch became increasingly grabby.

The solution for me was to switch the friction plates to Barnett wet type. The vee two also uses Kawi plates, from memory they were the same as the early 1000 cc Kawi, but the v3 is, of course, a later design.
I used the Watsonian (Robert) method for running a wet clutch.
I first made a gasket for the clutch cover and plugged the drain at bottom of the clutch compartment. With the clutch cover laid flat, fill it with oil then slap it on with as little oil loss as possible.
It has run 22,000 miles so far this way, no clutch slip, drag or grab, pretty much a perfect clutch.

Glen
 
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peterg

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Howdy Glen,

See now I stated V1 instead of V2 intended and you haved answered question I have posed for years now on what the difference between the versions might be when hearing of the V3's existence. Apparently early V2's had iron baskets so I made sure to acquire the alloy when has been absolutely faultless for 12 years. Sintered bronze is a lovely clutch material which I've run foe nearly 20 years in two Indian Chiefs. Having way more bite than fiber it will indeed be grabby at the least provocation but this can entirely mitigated by having weakening one's pressure plate strength. To give you some idea of how much less, I run only 8 springs on one 74 ci machine and 12 springs on the hot rod 80 incher on a basket designed for 16 springs.

When fettling the Red Rap to achieve even plate lift off, rather than just throwing shims in the buckets which would have raised pressure, I match my srings by height carefully grinding of bases of them so only the thinnest washers would be required. Clutch effort matches the original in my Shadow and engagement nice and progressive.
 
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