With a new battery in place, the engine of my dad’s bike roared. That was a good start, but more needed to be done including unstucking the clutch. Let’s see how repairing the clutch of an Indian Scout 741 might go, shall we!?
Have you missed the part where I explain that I’m starting a new adventure with my dad? We are rebuilding his vintage bike, an Indian Scout from 1941! You can read about it on this page which explains it all. Once done, I’ll probably go on a road trip with this bike. But that’s going to take some time…
Note: this post includes affiliated links. Not going to make a habit of it with this series but here, I thought it would be useful.
So as you may have read in my previous post about finding a battery for the bike, I was hoping to do a test drive after installing a toy battery which did manage to make enough sparks to start the engine. Unfortunately, I never managed, as the engine stalled when I released the clutch. It was stuck. At least that was my dad’s diagnostic! I’m quite clueless but I was eager to get my first mechanic lesson!
So the next time I was there, we repaired the clutch!
Repairing the clutch of an Indian Scout 741
How did my dad knew what needed to be done? Apart from experience and knowledge, I have no clue.
At that point in time, on my side, all I knew was: Push the clutch pedal with the heel to shift gear, release with the toes to move forward.
But now I’m learning…
How does the clutch operates?
Like any clutch, the concept is that when you engage the clutch to shift gear, pressure is exercised on a pressure plate. When you release the clutch, pressure is released as well and the chain inside does its job.
When the pressure is released from the pressure plate, space should be created but in our case, everything inside, the plates the disks, they all stayed together. My dad considered that it wasn’t a surprise as the oil had not been changed in years.
Disassembling the clutch
So we started disassembling. The pedal and the foot board came out first. Before removing the clutch cover, we first had to drain the oil. Dad removed the chain adjusting screw and the oil started flowing.
We then starting removing the screws around the clutch cover case.
When removing the screws from the clutch, Dad showed me a simple little trick, to keep such screws and the corresponding lock washer and nuts, together and in the right place. He had precut a cardboard piece and drew the chain case cover and added holes for each screw. When removing them, we put them in their designated place and later put them back exactly where they belonged!
They are some different screws. Some have lock washers and nuts, some don’t and keeping them in place is important and this little trick makes life much easier.
Even with all the screws removed, the cover was stuck to the other part of case. Dad refrained me from using a screwdriver that I wanted to insert in-between the two parts. He was worried it might break the cover. Instead, he gently tapped on the cover all around and slowly it spread from the chain case.
He unscrew the release worm and the cover came out gently.
Dad then removed the chain, but I’m not quite sure we had to, to achieve our goal.
More screws to remove and the whole mechanism appeared including the clutch disks which were indeed very sticky.
The clutch tension spring plate is just beautiful, don’t you think?
Cleaning the clutch
Once removed, my dad cleaned everything including the clutch disks with gasoline. Apparently to remove oil, gasoline is the best!
He cleaned everything inside while I cleaned the outside. I used his drill, equipped with wire brushes tools as well as my Dremel, with my little sanding tools for difficult areas. I was so proud!!
work in progress…
Time to put everything back together!
Everything was clean, no sign of excessive wear… So, technically there wasn’t anything to repair just unstuck. I think we’ll have to replace the little springs at some point. And I might upgrade the disks as well. But that will be for later.
So at this point, it was time to put everything back together. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle, everything fits perfectly, it’s really neat and I was just so excited!
The important bit here is to check the distance between the clutch spring plate and the pressure plate. Once that’s good, you can put everything back together.
Before we could put the cover back on, we had to create a new gasket. Dad has some special paper to do so. We just had to draw it and cut it. You can also find some fancy silicon gaskets nowadays, but my dad is very old school.
Fit the gasket, a bit of grease, put the cover back and all the screws and caps. Put the pedal and the foot board on. And voila!
Clutch repaired! Well, cleaned actually! Oh, wait, got to put some oil back inside, tight up the chain… OK, all is good! 😉
In conclusion
That was so much fun! I loved it!
It’s complicated and simple at the same time. Things fit or they don’t, but there is only one right way to put pieces together. It’s somehow obvious and somehow “stupid simple”.
Look, I still don’t know shit. But I’m totally confident that I can learn. It’s super exiting.
Now, my dad did not leave me the time to clean the screws’ external parts so that still needs to be done. In any case, I still have to polish the chain case cover, so I’ll do those at the same time.
Far more importantly, I’m pretty sure we’ll have to redo the whole thing again very soon. I don’t think we paid attention to all the details. Not sure I could convince him to change the clutch disks, but who knows, maybe… Also, I can’t remember seeing a shoe spring, a little gasket, inside and in the middle. Not sure we got the distance between the clutch spring plate and the pressure plate right…
When I watched the video below, I was like… Hummm ok, we can do better!
Caliper
If there is one tool my dad kept using, it’s his old caliper. It’s not electronic and maybe I should get one like this for him as his eye sight is not what it used to be. This is just a super useful tool, especially when you are in Europe, working on an American bike. I’ll explain this in another post!
Next step?
Now we got to redo the carburetor!! Dad thinks there is something wrong with it as well. We’ll see…
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