Clutch suppressor tool == POP

Gents,

I borrowed a clutch suppressor tool and was able to get the diaphragm tension released so I can remove the circlip. So far so good. I was preparing to put the diaphragm back on and I had it in the suppressor tool on the bench. I turned it and it made a loud pop and seems to have moved the diaphragm in the opposite direction. Do I need to use the tool to reverse what I have done and is it safe? I will admit that the bang that came from that was pretty loud and a bit disturbing. Before I proceed I just want to be sure that what I do will be done safely and correctly. Here is a pic as it sits.

I have done that!

I just reversed direction and it came back correct.

1up3down said:

I have done that!

I just reversed direction and it came back correct.

Click to expand...

Will it come back quietly, or should I expect another explosion?

The bottom nut is threaded down tight onto the diaphragm center so you can't turn the bolt out accidently while you are compressing the diaphragm. The middle nut doesn't belong there. The top nut does all the work compressing and releasing the diaphragm. You might want to consider just leaving the compression tool on the diaphragm compressed while it's sitting on the bench the next time. You are very lucky.

I may be dense and old, but I'm not understanding the problem here. Every time I take the diaphragm off, it's compressed, kind of like when you hold the clutch lever in, and when I put it back on, it gets uncompressed? Don't know what the pop is about and who is lucky?

Dave
69S

If you tighten too much, the spring will invert, that is what happened

I got it back together. I am lucky, based on the noise that thing made. I had quite a bit of force.

I realize now that it did not make too much sense to mess with the diaphragm while it was in the suppressor tool.

I was able to reverse it back to where it belongs and install it in to the bike.

Thanks,

jon

I,m with you DogT. Making my brain hurt.
The 2 middle nuts are irrelevent. The top nut pulls the centre up & keeps it there?

Sorry, it makes my brain hurt too when I re-read it and I'm the one who wrote it. I thought he had sprung the bolt out of the diaphragm before slacking off the top nut. The bottom nut is used to cinch down on the diaphragm to make sure that doesn't happen accidentally. That middle nut is a mystery. I've always just left the diaphragm and the compressor together as it is till it's time to put it back.

I always put the tool on finger tight and then tightened the center bolt until the diaphragm was just loose on the circlip and that's it. Take off the circlip, do the work, and then put circlip back on and loosen the center bolt, finished. No pops, no issues, no brain farts. Too simple.

Dave
69S

DogT said:

I always put the tool on finger tight and then tightened the center bolt until the diaphragm was just loose on the circlip and that's it. Take off the circlip, do the work, and then put circlip back on and loosen the center bolt, finished. No pops, no issues, no brain farts. Too simple.

Dave
69S

Click to expand...

Me too. Compress the spring just enough so that it can rotate. Then pop the big clip thing off.

My point of the original post is that I realized that I did something wrong and rather than proceed and do more damage or possibly hurt myself, I asked for advice. I got it and all is well. Thank you all for your constructive input.

I had turned the nut while it was on the bench. That was a bad move and I realized it as soon as the diaphragm snapped back.

I try to do things that I am not familiar with very deliberately and before making a bad situation worse, I came here. I do appreciate the help I have gotten.

It is certainly a case of dodging a bullet and learning a lesson.

Thanks,

jon

OK Jon, not trying to be critical, we all over think some things once in a while. At least it turned out fine and we all learned something.

Dave
69S

Jon, as I said, I also inverted the damn thing once.

You only need one nut, that's all, just one nut.

You screw the big bolt in the clutch about four threads and that's it, you don't touch that again until you are all done reinstalling the big cir clip, then you finally unscrew it.

The only nut you use is the number one, you tighten it a couple of turn to be able to remove the main spring and put it aside, and then you loosen it when you have the cir clip reinstalled.

There is no point, that I have ever seen, for the use of any of the other nuts. I threw them away.

What about the nut operating the tool ? BTW the useless tool was a term used for an incompetent mechanic. Threw away my extra nut too as could not figure out what it could be used for on the compressor tool's function and only produced more headscratchin' for a tool that in the manual says is "Potentially Dangerous if used incorrectly". Whew.

In my homemade version with a PVC cap, I used a piece of threaded rod so you can thread the rod into the clutch spring, put on the cap and then just tighten down the nut on the outside of the cap. Personally, I don't like to keep springs compressed so I let the tension off mine to store it while I'm building the bike.

I'm baffled by this tool all of a sudden. I have the same basic tool as the original post (blue, 4 feet as a result of the 2 U-shaped straps of metal welded together). I've used it numerous times to compress the spring and it's worked every time as noted earlier (thread it in sufficiently, lock it with the bottom nut, then tighten the nut on top making sure things don't rotate).

However, I went to compress the diaphragm spring with it today and instead of it flattening the spring it is doing the opposite! It's essentially pulling the middle of the spring up; i.e.- making it even more domed instead of pushing it down to flatten it. And I can only tighten that top nut a little bit until the tool ends up resting on the bottom nut (and if I take the bottom nut out it pulls the center up even more, really "doming" it). It's just going the wrong way!

There's really only one way to do this so I'm baffled why this is happening. Appreciate pointer so I can get the bike back together.

Thanks!

If you tighten the nut on top and don't let the bolt turn, it's got to be pulling the center of the clutch diaphragm towards the outside of the bike, away from the clutch plates. When the diaphragm gets loose, that is you should be able to spin it freely, you should be able to pull out the large clip and then everything falls out, sort of.

Dave
69S

Dave,

Thanks, but my problem is exactly that: it IS pulling the center of the clutch diaphragm towards the outside of the bike. Although in my case it's on the bench. I may have to take this back to the local Brit bike shop here in town tomorrow as they helped me get this setup together. This is a bike I bought from a neighbor somewhat in boxes (he started out replacing isolastics and escalation occurred...rebuilt gearbox, bought a belt drive conversion, etc.). I got it almost back together except for the clutch and belt drive, which had never been installed. It seemed the circlip groove was cut too low in the basket, such that there wasn't room to get the circlip fully seated, so I took it to the local shop and proved it was extremely tight but could be done.

They handed it back to me assembled, and I took it home and proceeded to compress the spring to get it apart so could bolt it to the bike. If you go back to the original picture at the top of this post, that spring is over-compressed and thus inverted, correct? Mine is installed in the clutch assembly domed, but now I'm wondering if the shop didn't invert my spring and give it back to me that way? I'll take a picture of it as is and post it shortly.

Maybe you've got it inverted. I've never done that that I know of. When you pull on the clutch lever, it pushes the clutch rod through the gearbox, pushing the center of the diaphragm away from the center of the bike (against the clip), which loosens up the clutch plates. When you install the compression tool, it sort of does the same thing, but since the outer edges of the tool are against the outer edge of the diaphragm instead of the clip, it loosens the diaphragm from the clip. If it's in pieces on the bench, how do you know it's working right? I bet it's inverted, but wouldn't go to vegas on it.

The springs on the diaphragm should be pressing the clutch plates towards the centre of the bike in normal operation with the clutch lever not pulled.

Dave
69S