This is a walk-through for changing the clutch on the VTX 1800. I did this swap to the MTC clutch kit to stop clutch slipping on my friend’s bike. This is a simple job which requires a few basic tools and a torque wrench. As always undertake this project at your own risk, but with a little common sense this isn’t very hard to do.

Required tools/Materials

• New friction plates, whichever you choose – I used the MTC ones
• 7 steel clutch plates, OEM #22321-MAT-000
• 2 new exhaust gaskets
• 1 quart of cheap 10W-40 oil for soaking the new plates (make sure it is NOT energy-conserving)
• Black RTV silicone or “Hondabond” liquid gasket maker
• Torque wrench capable of 9 ft/lbs or 108 in/lbs
• 8mm and 10mm socket
• 5mm allen
• Roughly 14″ piece of wooden dowel rod
• Hammer
• Gasket scraper or razor blade
• If you’re not changing your oil at the same time then you’ll need some 2x lumber, bricks, etc to rest the bike on
• (Optional) B&B heavy duty clutch bolts

Process
Before you get started you need to soak the new clutch plates in oil. Any quart of cheap 10W-40 will suffice as you’re just using it to soak the plates and throwing it out (IMO there’s too much possibility of it getting dirty to want to reuse it). Make sure that the oil you get doesn’t have friction modifiers like Molybdenum (Moly) and you don’t want any oil stamped “energy conserving” as these additives cause clutch slippage. You can soak the plates in a bin (like an oil drain pan) or a Ziploc bag and pour the oil in with them. If you use the Ziploc I still recommend putting it in something in case the bag springs a leak. You don’t have to soak the steel plates as well but I do for good measure. You soak the plates so that when you finish and start the bike you’re not spinning a completely dry clutch against itself. Soaking the steel plates gives you a little more oil in there as insurance. The plates need to soak for at least an hour before installing them, but I prefer to soak them overnight before installation just to make sure the oil really works into the plates.

While the plates are soaking you can start working on the bike itself. First, remove your exhaust. This process is different from pipe to pipe so I’ll just say remove it – and don’t forget to remove the old exhaust gaskets too! Once your exhaust is off you’ll have to decide if you’re changing your oil now or not. If you’re changing your oil then drain the crankcase and leave it empty until afterwards. If you’re not changing the oil then put the front and rear tire on a 2x board or other roughly 2 inch block. I did mine by putting just the rear tire on 2 2×6’s but it’s up to you. With the bike on these blocks rest it on its sidestand. Trust me it’ll be fine.

Now, looking at the bike from the right side, remove the seven 5mm allen bolts holding the clutch cover in place and the five 5mm allen bolts holding the timing cover in place. Remove both covers and set them aside in a safe place.

Be careful when you remove the clutch cover, there are 10 little rubber “thingies” that act as vibration dampeners for the cover. Sometimes they stick to the crankcase cover so you have to remove them and reinstall them where they go.

This is what they look like:

This is where they go:

Remove the big rubber dampener from over the clutch cover and set it aside.

With the covers off it’s time to remove the right crankcase cover itself. This consists of 15 8mm bolts, you can see the locations labeled in this picture.

 

Now keep in mind, there are 3 different sizes of case bolts here, so to make this a little less complicated on reassembly I highly suggest something like this cardboard template for the case bolts.

This idea works great on anything with different sizes of bolts/screws where you need to remember exactly where they go. You can see the holes in mine, but many of the bolts were reinstalled already when the pic was snapped.

With all the case bolts removed take your hammer and wooden dowel, come from the left side of the bike behind the rear cylinder and slide the rod through until it touches the tab on the right side case (see pic). This picture was taken from the top of the engine looking down at the case where the timing and clutch “circles” meet the “flat” area on top the case.

With the dowel against that tab, a couple of light pops with the hammer should break the cover loose. Something else to keep in mind once the case is open is that the edges can be fairly sharp and I know a couple of guys who actually sliced themselves pretty good on them, so be careful! (Thanks to Bill Lage aka Wyandotte Kid for this pointer!)

Under the cover:

Remove all 6 of the clutch bolts and springs and set them aside. Bring each bolt up equally a few turns at a time to prevent loading too much pressure on just 1 or 2 bolts. If too much pressure is placed on a bolt it can be weakened and potentially fail during use. With the bolts and springs removed you should be able to remove the pressure plate (the plate the bolts and springs were in) and you’ll see something similar to the picture below. At this point the old clutch plates will just pull out. You can pull them out using a small screwdriver. If you have a small hooked pick, it will make the job easier. The plates will alternate one friction plate and one steel plate all the way to the back of the basket. You will remove 8 friction plates and 7 steel ones.

 

Now that the old clutch plates are out you can begin installing the new clutch plates. Look closely at the steel plates, many of these are made through a stamping process where they are punched out of sheet steel. The stamping process leaves a rounded edge and a sharp edge. When you begin installing the clutch plates you want to put the sharp edges to the inside. This is an old mechanics trick I picked up, the idea being that if the clutch may have trouble disengaging the rounded edge will be less likely to “catch” or “snag” anything in the clutch basket during disengagement. It’s not absolutely necessary, but it only takes an extra second to do it, so I do.

Begin installing the new clutch by putting a friction plate in first and then alternating steel/friction/steel/friction until you have 8 friction plates and 7 steel plates in. For every plate you install make sure to press it into place on top of the last one so there is no binding between plates. You should start and end with a friction plate. Make sure when installing the plates that all the “inner” plate notches sit in the same grooves on the basket. The outer plate (the last friction plate) goes in a separate notch on the basket (see pic).

At this point reinstall the lifter plate over the clutch plates and prepare to install the springs and bolts.

With the proper shims (if applicable) on each post put the springs and bolts back on and tighten them down slowly in a criss-cross pattern (like in the pic).

Once they are all close to being snugged down get out the torque wrench and finish them off by tightening them to 9 ft/lbs or 108 in/lbs. Be careful when you do this since you’re dealing with such a light amount of torque – many people have posted on the forums about breaking these bolts. I use an “old school” beam style torque wrench because I believe it is more accurate at low torque settings and so far I have never broken a single one of these bolts.

Once all 6 bolts are torqued properly you can begin the reassembly process. Begin by cleaning off both the case surfaces using a gasket scraper (available at auto parts stores for a few bucks and well worth it IMO). If you don’t have one, a razor blade will suffice. Scrape all the old gasket off and make sure both surfaces are clean.

I usually wipe each surface with a little rubbing alcohol and a paper towel after scraping the gasket off, just being careful not to cut myself on the sharp edges. This isn’t completely necessary, but doing this ensures both surfaces are good and clean. Now get out the black RTV or “Hondabond” liquid gasket material and run a small consistent bead around the mating surface of the case cover that is removed. You don’t have to use a lot, remember that the cases are going to be bolted together so anything much thicker than a piece of paper is going to be squeezed out as extra. Just put a thin, even layer so that you end up with a nice seal all the way around. I use my finger afterwards to make sure it’s spread evenly and completely over all the edges. If you look closely at the cover you’ll see that it’s not necessary to do the “outer circles” around the timing and clutch covers where it is double-walled as there are small slots there anyway.

With the liquid gasket in place you can slide the cover back onto the case and begin reinstalling all 15 of the 8mm cover bolts again.

Torque the case bolts down to 9 ft/lbs or 108 in/lbs and then wipe up any gasket maker you may have squeezed out during this process. If you’re not in a hurry then don’t wipe the gasket off now, if you wait until it dries it will peel off very easily.

With the case cover bolted up you can reinstall the big rubber dampener and the chrome clutch cover using it’s seven 5mm bolts. Then reinstall the chrome timing cover using its five 5mm bolts. These only require a few ft/lbs of torque each so just be careful snugging these down normally and don’t wrench on them too hard.

That’s it, you’re done! The only thing left to do is to reinstall your exhaust system per whichever set of directions you need to follow, making sure to use new exhaust gaskets (pics below).

Rear exhaust port

Front exhaust port

With the exhaust reinstalled remember to torque the 12mm exhaust nuts to 17 ft/lbs. Go back over them several times as some will “loosen” a bit as you snug the others down. Make sure to re-torque these again after a couple of rides as the heat/cold cycle of riding will tend to loosen things up a little bit as well. If you drained your oil don’t get over-excited and forget to put BOTH your drain plugs back properly (22 ft/lbs), install a new filter, and add 3.9 quarts of your favorite oil.

That’s it – you’re done – congratulations!

Afterthoughts
This is a swap that will be necessary at some point in time during ownership of the bike. The clutch is not a lifetime component on these bikes, especially since many stock clutches slip even when they’re new. I opted to install the MTC clutch because in this particular application the bike needed the extra grab (it was running a 40 shot of nitrous). Sometimes a simple spring swap will be all that is needed to stop slipping on a stock bike, but if that doesn’t solve your problem then this may be your answer.

Some people will tell you it’s not necessary to replace the stock steel plates unless you are really having problems with the clutch, and sometimes this is true BUT… The VTX doesn’t do the best job at oiling the inner plates, so what you usually find when you open the bike is outer plates in good condition and inner plates burned up/glazed. So while you might be able to reuse some (possibly all) of the steel plates, do you really want to open the bike up and find that you need to replace them but don’t have them? Then you have to wait with your bike unrideable and the right case wide open while you order new steels and have to wait. My personal opinion is that it’s worth the ~$50 of “insurance” not to be stuck in that situation. Replacing the steels will also save you from having to do the job twice if you reuse the old plates and have problems later on.

With a friend around to help remove and reinstall the exhaust this isn’t a hard job to do. I figure it’s about an hour total for job time NOT including the exhaust removal and reinstall (some exhausts are a little tricky to get on/off).

Video courtesy of Big Bad

This video is intended to give you an idea for the kind of things you’ll see and do during this job. It is not intended to replace the above instructions for anyone except experienced mechanics because the text above contains important details.