Well the motorcycle goddess may not have smiled on me, but she did at least grin.

I put the new oil into the bike, fired it up and damn, clutch still wouldn’t disengage.  I drained all that nice new oil out, took the clutch apart,  and put it back together.  This time I was smart enough to try the clutch before putting oil in the block and waisting another couple of litres.  Still no joy.

We had to go to the local KTM dealer to pick up Linda’s bike, now with 2 smoking new tires on it.  The owner of the shop used to be a Kawaski dealer, so I brought my shop manual to ask him some questions.  The end result was he didn’t have a clue as to why it wouldn’t disengage.  Which I toook as a good thing, as we fully explored the few places where something could go wrong.  So we go back home, stumped but not ready to throw in the towel yet.

I pulled it apart yet again.  On a whim I took the new clutch springs out and put the old ones back in, buttoned things back up and tried the clutch.  Yippee!  This time it worked.  Filled it up with oil and took her out for a test drive.  Everything worked like a charm.  Another hour putting accessories back on the bike and all is well.

It has over 500km on that clutch now and everything still seems good so I guess I must have put it all back together right 🙂

Stay tuned for an update on the 2nd off-road experience, and why Linda is starting to have second thoughts about doing the TCAT.