[SOLVED] Stuck Clutch?

Just to back up what was said above about Yamaha clutches, I resurrected a 1976 Yamaha XS650C about five years ago. It was a genuine barn find complete with a layer of cow sh!t on the underside. The bike had been sitting for...10-15 years I think...and while the engine was free, the clutch was stuck tighter than a frozen turkey. So, I replaced the clutch cable, changed the engine oil, turned on some 1960s rock'n-roll, lashed the clutch lever to the handlebar with a bungee cord, put the bike in 5th gear and started rocking it back and forth on the garage floor while sitting on it and diggin' on the tunes.

After about 20 minutes I realized that I had moved about 3-4 feet away from where I had started and the clutch lever was much closer to the bars than when I had begun. Now I really got into it and within about 10 minutes, I was doing the Fred Flintstone shuffle all over the garage and the clutch lever was right up against the bars. About two weeks later I got the engine running (carb issues) and everything worked just fine! Since then I simply give the clutch a squeeze whenever I walk past the bike during the winter lay-up - and that is it.

My_1976_Yamaha_XS650C_Dec-2016-LHS.jpg

As of Monday, I have put nearly 15,000 miles on that bike and have had no further clutch issues at all. I have never been inside the RH engine case-cover and never done anything beyond the occasional adjustment to the clutch after that initial freeing-up operation.

I will have to go in there soon to do the #4 starter gear change for which XS650s are famous (whenever I start it, the gears clash and it sounds like a teaspoon thrown down a garburator). It always starts - but the sound is....unattractive.
 
Last edited:
I am sorry, that bike never really set well for me. I got to ride 4 different ones. I did not like any of them.

giphy.gif


The only Yamahas from the 1970s that were an interest to me were the XS500 and SR500.

I only owned one Yamaha in the 33 years of riding and it was a 1969 AT1C. It was #3 on my Worse Motorcycles I ever owned. Brillot2000 - What Was The Worst Motorcycle You Ever Owned?
 
Last edited:
I guess I'm lucky. I've owned five bikes: an '83 Honda GL650i Silverwing; two '99 Kawasaki Concours (Tumbleweed and Tumbletwo); and my two '10 NTs (Dudley and Horse). They've all been good bikes that I've enjoyed.

In about '99 or '00, I had a young guy and his wife working for me at the church in Ft. Morgan. My associate pastor had '95 Goldwing 1500 and he and I rode a lot. Al, the young youth director, had a friend who had a Yamaha XS650C that looked just like the one MaxPete has. He'd gotten it cheap and he couldn't ride it when he got it because of some mechanical difficulty -- don't remember what it was. The guy he'd bought it from helped him get it running and he took it for his first ride...which turned out to be the first motorcycle ride he'd ever taken. He got a little over two blocks and had to make a turn. Except he didn't make it. He got probably 45 of the 90 degrees, then hit a curb, bent the front rim and was thrown off the bike. Not only had he no skill, but he doubled down by having no protective gear. He was luck and lost most of his kinetic energy on grass. He had a little road rash on one elbow and that was it. But he's never ridden a motorcycle since. It took him about six months to sell the bike. He'd paid $400 and got $200 plus a lot of grief from his wife. I think if he'd fixed and it taken a riding course, she'd have been fine with it.

Interestingly enough, Al and his wife Sharon are the co-pastors of the Fort Morgan United Methodist Church now.
 
MaxPete said:
Just to back up what was said above about Yamaha clutches, I resurrected a 1976 Yamaha XS650C about five years ago. It was a genuine barn find complete with a layer of cow sh!t on the underside. The bike had been sitting for...10-15 years I think...and while the engine was free, the clutch was stuck tighter than a frozen turkey. So, I replaced the clutch cable, changed the engine oil, turned on some 1960s rock'n-roll, lashed the clutch lever to the handlebar with a bungee cord, put the bike in 5th gear and started rocking it back and forth on the garage floor while sitting on it and diggin' on the tunes.

After about 20 minutes I realized that I had moved about 3-4 feet away from where I had started and the clutch lever was much closer to the bars than when I had begun. Now I really got into it and within about 10 minutes, I was doing the Fred Flintstone shuffle all over the garage and the clutch lever was right up against the bars. About two weeks later I got the engine running (carb issues) and everything worked just fine! Since then I simply give the clutch a squeeze whenever I walk past the bike during the winter lay-up - and that is it.

View attachment 17585

As of Monday, I have put nearly 15,000 miles on that bike and have had no further clutch issues at all. I have never been inside the RH engine case-cover and never done anything beyond the occasional adjustment to the clutch after that initial freeing-up operation.

I will have to go in there soon to do the #4 starter gear change for which XS650s are famous (whenever I start it, the gears clash and it sounds like a teaspoon thrown down a garburator). It always starts - but the sound is....unattractive.
Click to expand...

I rode my 1977 XS650D for 10 years before I sold it and bought my NT700V. The XS650’s are easy to work on and aftermarket parts are easily available. They are not a great interstate touring bike due to vibration but otherwise a very nice vintage bike to get into. I bought mine in excellent all original condition with 1,200 miles on it for $800 in 2000 and sold it for $2,000 in 2010.
 
Absolutely agree Norman - the XS650 inst so good as a tourer but as a Sunday afternoon rider, the riding position (on the pre-Special standard models), the easy handling, decent brakes and ahhhh...the beautiful sound of a 360 degree vertical twin - can’t be beat.
 
Max Pete, you did a good job bringing that Yamaha back to life. After years of riding Triumphs, I bought a new 1971 XS650. It was the first year of that model and had a twin leading shoe vented front brake. The bike was gold with white stripes on the tank. I have the bill of sale on the wall in my shop....$1073. It had a very robust motor with a full roller bearing bottom end. I think that was partially responsible for the vibration they produced.
 
I don't think modern bikes are good candidates for "bump starting," when the battery is dead.

For a long time, Honda motorcycles had the ignition switch on the frame's front downtube. One of the pitfalls of that location was that someone with a wad of keys on his key ring would eventually cause a premature failure of the ignition switch. All those keys bouncing up & down as the motorcycle went down the road would do the same to the ignition key and it soon wore out the innards of the ignition switch!

I'm not sure when Honda moved the ignition switch to the upper triple clamp. Maybe in the mid-70s? That location made it a bunch easier to incorporate a steering lock. And you could no longer put a wad of keys on a ring with your bike key because they'd foul something! :)
 
Thanks for the kind words!

she was a heck of a mess - I had to install a complete new wiring harness, new handlebar switches and am entirely new front brake system - but now she’s solid.

the vibration is a consequence of the 360 deg. vertical twin layout (both pistons rise and fall together) and the fact that the engineis rigidly mounted. The bearings really don’t affect the vibration - but they sure make those engine tough. In fact the camshaft hasTWO ball bearings at each end. Yamaha really did a job on that bike - their first four-stroke.
P
 
MaxPete said:
Thanks for the kind words!

she was a heck of a mess - I had to install a complete new wiring harness, new handlebar switches and am entirely new front brake system - but now she’s solid.

the vibration is a consequence of the 360 deg. vertical twin layout (both pistons rise and fall together) and the fact that the engineis rigidly mounted. The bearings really don’t affect the vibration - but they sure make those engine tough. In fact the camshaft hasTWO ball bearings at each end. Yamaha really did a job on that bike - their first four-stroke.
P
Click to expand...
I forgot about the crank layout. Kenny Roberts won a lot of flat track races with that engine. Do you know if they used a 180 degree crankshaft?
 
As far as I am aware, the Robert’s race bike engines were fairly similar to the stockers (except for things like carbs, the camshaft profile and the exhaust systems). Specifically, I’m sure they used the same 360 deg. crankshaft layout.

The smaller Hondas and of course two-stroke Yamaha twins and bikes like the Suzuki X6 Hustler and GT500 Titan were 180 deg. engines.
 
Last edited:
XS650 engines are unique in that the two halves of the crank are splined together, and can be pressed apart and rotated to not-quite 270 degrees. This results in a balance factor about the same as most modern 270-degree parallel twins. Of course, you still need a special camshaft. Home - Hughs Hand Built for more info.
 
MaxPete said:
As far as I am aware, the Robert’s race bike engines were fairly similar to the stockers (except for thing like carbs, the camshaft profile and the exhaust systems). Specifically, I’m sure they used the same 360 deg. crankshaft layout.

The smaller Honda’s and of course two-stroke Yamaha twins and bikes like the Suzuki X6 Hustler and GT500 Titan were 180 deg. engines.
Click to expand...

The XS650 flat track bike that Kenny rode was heavily modified. It was bored out to 750cc and had special heads made for it by Yamaha. It produced around 90 hp which made them competitive for a couple of years with the Harley XR750. Later he went with a Yamaha TZ750 two stoke which were shortly outlawed by the AMA for flat track racing.
 
Shadowjack said:
XS650 engines are unique in that the two halves of the crank are splined together, and can be pressed apart and rotated to not-quite 270 degrees. This results in a balance factor about the same as most modern 270-degree parallel twins. Of course, you still need a special camshaft. Home - Hughs Hand Built for more info.
Click to expand...

Correct - and a different ignition system trigger as well.
 
Warren said:
The XS650 flat track bike that Kenny rode was heavily modified. It was bored out to 750cc and had special heads made for it by Yamaha. It produced around 90 hp which made them competitive for a couple of years with the Harley XR750. Later he went with a Yamaha TZ750 two stoke which were shortly outlawed by the AMA for flat track racing.
Click to expand...

Indeed - and he said afterward that the TZ750 was virtually unrideable on dirt.
 
I'm sure I could not ride a TZ750 on dirt, Roberts was special.

Brad
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom