Forsooth, clutch lifter rod

[RedEye]

Today I finally had a chance to get my wrench on and follow up on my shifting issue as chronicled here. I figured I'd start with cleaning the clutch lifter rod so I could check and clean under the front sprocket cover at the same time. I could tell it needed a good cleaning out because yesterday I rode 230 km on the highway, and immediately afterwards cleaned and lubed the chain. Since then the bike has been pushed off the center stand and rolled 15 feet into the garage, and then put back on the center stand for today's work. And somehow in that ~16 feet of travel the chain went from spotless to this:

But anyway, I removed the sprocket cover leaving the clutch slave cylinder attached, and this is what I found:

The little twerp I bought it from told me the sprockets and chain were all new. I believed him because the chain and rear sprocket looked good, but it's been a long damn time since anyone's taken that front sprocket cover off. The sprocket is worn to shit, and more relevant to my shifting trouble, the rod is completely mired in about a decade's worth of rock hard oily sludge.

After about an hour of careful cleaning I was able to get the rod out (actually I could have pulled it right out at any time, but it took that long to be reasonably certain I could find the hole again to replace it). The rod appears to be a writeoff, the exposed portion is pretty mangled:

There are also a couple of fairly deep, very precise scores around the rod as seen here:

Which brings me to my first question: Are those score lines supposed to be there, or is the rod supposed to be smooth? The marks really are uniform enough that they look like they belong, and if that's the case I should probably not be sanding them smooth

And my second question: does anyone know what else is likely to need replacing based on what you've seen so far? The Bird is my main vehicle and I can't take off the clutch cover and start tearing into it right now, maybe in a few weeks I'll have some time. If there are other parts that will probably need to be replaced along with the lifter rod I might as well order them now and get everything shipped at once. In the meantime I'm sure that cleaning up the rod as much as possible will keep it roadworthy until I have time to work on it again. And speaking of cleaning up, I don't quite believe it but the book says the slave cylinder piston is somewhere in here:

I'm kind of scared to go poking around in there; anything I should know before I have at it?

Anyway, so far I know I need a new lifter rod, front sprocket, a clutch cover gasket if I need to go in from that side, and a god damn chain slider. I decided to take the slider off so I could clean around it . . . I really should have seen this coming. Top bolt off, looking good so far . . .

Take out the bottom bolt, and oh you deceitful whore:

This is what I get for buying a bike at night in a howling monsoon. I crouched down far enough to look at the chain and sprocket, and I could see the bottom mount of the slider. And that's all there was, this 2 inch stub that fell onto the garage floor :icon_banghead: The bottom of the swinger is looking a tad worse for wear:

Fun and funner But I'm still happy with the old girl. I've seen exactly one other XX for sale in the province this summer: 2 years newer (a 2000), 10,000 more km, and nearly as rough cosmetically as mine . . . and asking $6500. Good grief.

[rockmeupto125]

New sprocket, lube the splines, clean the rod up as you have (that matte finish in the one area that you're trying to clean up is the way it comes from the factory), clean the chain gunk out of the slave cylinder recess and you're good to go.

When you're putting that cover back on, locate the clutch pushrod into the slave cylinder (through that little hole in the sprocket cover) and push the cover straight on. It should go almost to the set position. If you put the pushrod into the engine all the way first and then place the sprocket cover you can trap the pushrod in a position NOT in the slave cylinder hole. As you draw the cover in, the pushrod will just compress the clutch, and when you try it out, you'll find that there's no clutch action from your lever, and you have to take the cover off again to position the pushrod.

[RedEye]

Thanks, I'll get the rod smoothed out and leave well enough alone for the moment.

Just ordered a VFR front sprocket and a chain slider, I have a shock shim and CCT here waiting to be installed, cush drive, air filter, full set of Sixity brake pads, knockoff rear wave rotor and iridium plugs all on the way. She's slowly coming together.

[blackhawkxx]

Great write up and photos to show others why they should clean the crude out of there from time to time.