Kanedog discovers a Clutching CATastrophy, again. Pics!

kanedog

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Kanedog 2015-2019, thanks for the good times S&M!
Guess I should take a closer look at mine and see.

What is causing this?

It’s gonna be a combo of engineering blunders. On their own, things will last a bit longer, but will eventually fail. Add all the ingredients in one mixing bowl, failure is imminent. The cover is super wimpy so it most likely letting the towers flex simply from the weights overcoming the spring pressure. The cover bushing/spider nut contact before the sheaves touch each other. The towers get pulled inward toward the shaft. This is bad. When some nice harmonics are added, it will attack the most stressed part of metal. The clutch doesn’t really stand a chance. Each cycle and full shift cycle progressively weakens the towers until BOOM! Thar she blows.

A heavy duty trinket, like a 911 cover(I have no affiliation) but not a Bikeman, will help keep the towers from flexing. It holds the tower in place and makes the clutch stiffer and firmer, just how we like it.


It will be either the spider nut interference and/or harmonics and/or flexing wimpy cover. All are clutch killers and all need to be fixed or it will keep happening.

The 2020’s may have fixed this issue. They fixed the harmonics issue but I haven’t held a 2020 clutch in my hand for official Kanedog approval.

Notice the inner belt marks only using less than 50% of the clutch. Lower gearing will allow more use of the clutch sheave. This defined dark to light marks could also be where the helix shift point occurs. The belt could be slipping down low because of too high of gear ratio. Whatever it is, it’s a bit off.

Notice the yellow arrow and belt mark. This is where the cover/spider nut stops the clutch from shifting. The belt marks should be all the way out to the edge for full shift out. The belt length and center to center distance may not work together anyway. The belt had to be changed to accommodate the roller bearing and tight deflection so who knows what shortcuts were taken.

Basically, there are a ton of flaws with this drive system. It’s such a bad design all the way through.

The inner belt marks indicate that the rider rides in low speed riding, like tree riding for instance. The sled doesn’t get wound up on a long pull much.

The outer marks indicate the rider goes from low speed to wfo full pin, with a light load fairly quickly. Like using wfo to help bring the sled around on a whip. There are not much belt marks between the outer and inner wear patterns. It’s like the sled is tree riding and then the odd burst of unloaded sled wfo and not much in between. I would guess by the dirty clutch compartment(lots of riding) and belt marks this would be Calebs’ sled. KBI case solved once again.
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Hope this makes sense I get on a roll and type away.
The above are my beliefs.
 
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kanedog

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^ might be mistaking diameter and radius. Here's a question - how high would a 2lb chunk go if it flew straight up through the hood?

In my experience, after going straight through the clutch cover and hood, the chunk o clutch went about 40 ft in the air. It flew in a weird arc like fastball curve ball and kinda hung in the air like a ufo for a bit. I guess cuz it was spinning so fast.

I watched one chunk shoot straight ahead about 125ft and one straight up. The third chunk went through the bellypan. After the frightening loud explosion, bracing against the rapid sled deceleration, hearing the 900cc piped cat triple rev to the moon, watching two base ball sized chunks of wildly spinning clutch parts, I wondered if I was gonna drown as the lake was 1/2 open water and half slush. Luckily I was on the slush part. That was one Cat life gone. I currently have 3 left.

Heehee, we used to wear life jackets and untie our boots in case of emergency when crossing this particular low elevation lake.
 
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Slamnek

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Shaaaat! I will be looking at my 18 this weekend. This is really concerning!
 

SUMMIT TREE

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You keep mentioning the spider nut and cover interference problem? As I mentioned earlier this isn’t a problem. In order for the clutch to shift to the point of the cover hitting the spider nut, the belt would be more than half way out of of the primary, not to mention the belt would then also be buried in the bottom of the secondary which usually destroys belts. There is really no realistic point in actual operation where the cover stops the primary clutch from shifting. Im not denying that there is a problem, but its not because the cover hits the spider nut. My 270 hp king cat even only pulls the belt up to within 1” of the rim of the primary, far from ever hitting the cover, so no piddly azz two stroke has the nuts to pull the belt half way out of the primary
 

kanedog

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You keep mentioning the spider nut and cover interference problem? As I mentioned earlier this isn’t a problem. In order for the clutch to shift to the point of the cover hitting the spider nut, the belt would be more than half way out of of the primary, not to mention the belt would then also be buried in the bottom of the secondary which usually destroys belts. There is really no realistic point in actual operation where the cover stops the primary clutch from shifting. Im not denying that there is a problem, but its not because the cover hits the spider nut. My 270 hp king cat even only pulls the belt up to within 1” of the rim of the primary, far from ever hitting the cover, so no piddly azz two stroke has the nuts to pull the belt half way out of the primary

Oh boy. You are saying that even if the the clutch cover hits the spider nut and stops the shift out, the belt would break long before that? Come on now. Wouldn’t that be a design flaw if that was the design?

You also say full shift out will never happen anyway. What about when you get air and you and your 270hp are wfo? Do you think a sled in the air, wfo wouldn't instantly go to full shift? Come on now. With your theory the belt should break before that point anyway.

That’s like saying if your truck reaches overdrive, the tires will blow. It’s like you are saying that you never use overdrive, so therefore any other truck will never reach overdrive even it’s in spinning in ice. That makes no sense.

Furthermore, if your 270hp King Cat belt only goes to 1” from the top of the clutch then one or more of the following is in play.
1. Your sled is not putting out 270hp, not even close.
2. Your sled is geared way too high.
3. You ride like a grandma.
 
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E-Zmoke

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You keep mentioning the spider nut and cover interference problem? As I mentioned earlier this isn’t a problem. In order for the clutch to shift to the point of the cover hitting the spider nut, the belt would be more than half way out of of the primary, not to mention the belt would then also be buried in the bottom of the secondary which usually destroys belts. There is really no realistic point in actual operation where the cover stops the primary clutch from shifting. Im not denying that there is a problem, but its not because the cover hits the spider nut. My 270 hp king cat even only pulls the belt up to within 1” of the rim of the primary, far from ever hitting the cover, so no piddly azz two stroke has the nuts to pull the belt half way out of the primary

The king cat is a different clutch
 

E-Zmoke

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Interesting that the king cat clutch does not have the ring damper harmonic type thinger

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SUMMIT TREE

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First of all there is nothing wrong with riding like a grandma......
no, what im saying is this when the clutch faces are close enough to have the cover bushing hit the spider nut then that puts the belt more than half way sticking out past the rim of the primary. I dont think its normal for the belt to actually go past flush with the rim of the primary? Im not sure what happens at wfo with no load on the track ie: when im rippin back flips. But at wfo with no load on it the forces involved to shift the primary is a product of RPM, which is usually electronically limited, so even if you are full throttle doing a big air trick the Rpm is not unlimited to allow primary to shift beyond normal points.
 

SUMMIT TREE

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Oh just seen the different clutch posts. If there different then as forest gump would say
thats all I got to say about that. I dont have a M8 to compare to but would be interesting to see what height the belt rides at when cover bushing is touching the spider nut.
 

E-Zmoke

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Another Interesting find KBI!! The 2020 clutch is a new part number!?? Also the spider is not available to purchase anymore as a part?

Some Houdini stuff going on here

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