Hi joey. Welcome to the forum. Your clutch is dragging. Your symptoms are common clutch drag symptoms. If you had clutch frictions replaced and your trouble persists you may have a worn clutch basket or inner hub or possibly bad thrust bearing or bad bearing inside your clutch basket center hub. You mentioned " when this happens" in your complaint. Does this indicate your complaint is not constant and only happens intermittently? Or is your complaint occuring constantly? If you want to try easy testing before disassembling your clutch, drain transmission fluid and refill with automotive ATF transmission fluid and ride bike for awhile. If gummed oil residue in clutch is your sticking problem this will correct it within a few hours of run time. If not you can remove clutch cover for disassembly and inspection. You would inspect basket and hub for grooved surfaces where clutch frictions and steel plates engage their drive/driven surfaces. Small imperfections can be dressed and removed with a flat file. Heavy grooving of either part require removal and replacement. Loose basket or hub or roughness of rotation require investigation of trouble. If no defects are found you should remove the actuator rod from inside shaft and check for the presence of the small steel ball between 2 shaft pieces. If it is present you may try forming a longer actuator shaft. Our resident forum expert @Axzon has developed a method of fashioning a longer actuator rod to correct dragging clutch. I dont remember dimensional specifics, but I'm hoping he sees your post and chimes in with his input. Be sure to post back and report your progress. Good luck

 

Thankyou so much for your reply, the problem happens everytime and seems to get worse when the bike actually becomes hotter. The garage said that the clutch basket looked fine and there was no obvious damage to it. They ordered a new clutch plate rod which was put in however the problem still persists after this. They tried multiple transmission oils however the problem still persisted. Could it be the shifting mechanism within the engine causing these problems or is it more clutch related.

thanks
Joey

 

Your complaint is common clutch drag symptoms, but yours is not typical because you claim it gets worse when hot. Transmission mainshaft bearing problem or basket center bearing problem would likely leave silver powder or flakes in drained trans oil. If there were excess thrust in trans mainshaft it could cause lost clutch actuator travel. A modified actuator rod could compensate for lost travel. If you had steel rod or an old motorcycle spoke with correct diameter (ala Axzon) you could fashion a rod with more length to allow additional disengagement travel. I dont remember exact dimension, but I think Axzon used 2 or 3mm?

 

When they took the bolt out that has the magnet in it he did say there looked like there was metal particles in it, the bike has about 104 hrs now what would I have to have look at to try get this problem sorted as trying to get the bike into neutral whilst stationary is almost impossible

 

Never easy to find neutral on most dirt bikes and most unrefined street bikes. Probably never going to be butter smooth finding neutral. See my previous post for my suggestions to correct your complaint or at the very least get you started in forward direction to solving problem. Best of luck to you

 

Thanks for your trust in me @augiedoggie The lengthening of the "rod" was about the Magura short rod in the master (handle) on the handle bars. The KTM version does not have a similar setup. Being a 2017 bike I would be surprised if @250Joey 's bike had a Magura clutch.

If your bike still wants to move forward when you have the clutch handle fully in Augie has been through the options. But fwiw I will here give you my view on the issue.

• If you remove the slave from the motor and hold it in your right hand with the thumb pressed against the piston and you use your left hand to press in the clutch leaver on the master, will the piston in the slave move straight away? Or is there a "free play" when you start pressing the clutch leaver?
• Most problems with the KTM hydraulic clutch is about getting rid of the air in the system. This can be a lengthy process and many good men have failed first time they try this. The best option is:

1. Take the slave off the motor
2. Open the master lid. Fill fluid to the top of the holder.
3. Now hold the slave up in the air as high as you can reach and press the clutch leaver. Keep holding your right hand thumb on the piston and press the piston back in. Do this a couple of times.
4. For the next step it can be good to get someone to help you. But it is doable alone, just tricky... While you keep pressure on the leaver AND the piston, open the air bleeding nipple on the slave and push the piston in. (Keep the slave high up in the air) There will be fluid everywhere, but don't worry about that. Fill up master again and carry on doing this all a few times. Then re-fit and check if it worked. (The idea here is to get rid of ALL air in the system).

• @augiedoggie already mentioned this, but can be good to mention: The clutch baskets fingers will get grooves in them from the fibre plates. Once the grooves are too deep the plates can not move freely and the clutch can not dis-engage fully. File down the grooves or get a new clutch basket.
• Try to adjust your clutch handle to be as far as possible out that is comfortable for you, so you get as long as possible movement.
• It can help to rebuild the master with new seals (they come as a kit including a master piston)
• Take your clutch inspection cover off (r/h side of the motor) and watch the clutch operate. It should come fully evenly out when you pull the clutch leaver! If not then you might have an issue with the springs. Also check that as soon as you start to operate the clutch you can see action on the pressure plate.
• The push rods do not really wear down. And even if they would do, there should be more than enough stroke in the slave piston to accommodate this.
• You should not have to, but at times it can help to take the whole r/h side motor cover off to make sure all works well. You can then easily watch how the clutch works. Note DO NOT run the engine with the side cover off!!

Feel free to come back for more advise once you been through all this and between Augie and me we should be able to crack this.