Clutch cover leak on Big Bear 350

[PolarisRich]

Hey guys,

A friend dropped off his late 80's Big Bear 350 for me to give it a once over. You know, oils's, brakes and grease. I thought I was done with the bike when I noticed a pool of oil under the bike. It looked like it was coming from the clutch cover. It looks like someone has worked in the clutch before because of all of the sloppy blue silicone around the cover.

Now my questions since i dont have a manual are..

1) Can I just remove the cover and not have to worry about pieces of the drivetrain falling out?

2) Is there a gasket, do I need a gasket or can i just clean and re-silicone?

3) I noticed a clutch adjuster on the cover, do I need to do anything to it before I remove the cover or or just leave it alone?

I've not worked on too many Yamaha's before so any help would be appreciated!

Thanks Rich

[rappy97]

No, you can pull it off without having anything falling out. You WILL need a new clutch gasket. Do not use RTV of Yamabond on that stuff.

[PolarisRich]

So i found the problem. The bottom left hand bolt the one thats about 3" long was wrong. Who ever replaced the clutch must have lost the bolt in question and replaced it with a different (Wrong Size) bolt. Instead of using a metric fine thread bolt the dumb as* use a standard 1/4 thread bolt that was too short. They cross threaded the bolt so bad that it never tightened down on the cover, thus causing the leak.

I drilled and tapped the hole and replaced the bolt so all should be good now.

I was able to save and clean the gasket that was on the cover and I used the blue gasket silicone to seal it. I'm going to wait till tomorrow to refill the bike with oil.

Thanks

[oxidized_black]

touche my good man! LOL

hope all is good tomorrow