Clutch Will NOT disengage

kommando · Jan 14, 2026

L.A.B. said:
The hardened clutch centre was introduced at the same time as the bronze plates according to service release N3/28.

My MK2a had the bronze plates but ate its first centre within a couple of years of my ownership, replacement bought from Bob Joyners in early 80's is fine to this day. They may have introduced it on the 850's from 300000 but their quality control must have let a few soft ones through. One bought today from AN or CNW would be fine but old ones are suspect,

L.A.B. · Jan 14, 2026

The bronze plate clutch and hardened centre were actually introduced on the 750 (in late 1972) from 212278.

Tornado · Jan 14, 2026

One cause of sticking plates is gb oil seepage along the pushrod, contaminating the plates. A good degrease with oven cleaner of friction and steel plates might resolve it. Book states to grease up the rod to reduce gb oil reaching clutch. More of issue when bike kept on side stand. A better option is to fit the DynoDave pushrod seal...i think AN now offers them?

RobBB · Jan 16, 2026

Hello Gentlemen- Great news: I read and digested as best I could, all the responses, and went back out the next day to look at the gearbox clutch arm and started over again. It appears that even though I have set this on two Norton's over a period of years without a hitch, for some reason I did not set the lever arm correctly AND make make sure I wasn't pushing the arm out of position from the clutch side. This time, it settled in correctly. I 'undid' it all, and reset it again, and then again one more time. I started the bike, and the clutch worked!
Thank you everyone for taking a moment to help me with this-
Lesson learned: I should have not assumed I knew what I was doing, as it's been a few years since I set the clutch rod and clutch arm, and needed to pay more attention to what I was doing.

MichaelB · Jan 16, 2026

Glad it worked out. It's a simple item that easily gets overlooked.
Hopefully others can learn from this.

cliffa · Jan 16, 2026

RobBB said:
Hello Gentlemen- Great news: I read and digested as best I could, all the responses, and went back out the next day to look at the gearbox clutch arm and started over again. It appears that even though I have set this on two Norton's over a period of years without a hitch, for some reason I did not set the lever arm correctly AND make make sure I wasn't pushing the arm out of position from the clutch side. This time, it settled in correctly. I 'undid' it all, and reset it again, and then again one more time. I started the bike, and the clutch worked!
Thank you everyone for taking a moment to help me with this-
Lesson learned: I should have not assumed I knew what I was doing, as it's been a few years since I set the clutch rod and clutch arm, and needed to pay more attention to what I was doing.

Glad you fixed it, and updated everyone.

Nortoniggy · Jan 17, 2026

kommando said:
My MK2a had the bronze plates but ate its first centre within a couple of years of my ownership, replacement bought from Bob Joyners in early 80's is fine to this day. They may have introduced it on the 850's from 300000 but their quality control must have let a few soft ones through. One bought today from AN or CNW would be fine but old ones are suspect,

Extreme thread drift warning, but I bought my Commando new from Bob Joyner in 1972.

Tornado · Jan 17, 2026

RobBB said:
Hello Gentlemen- Great news: I read and digested as best I could, all the responses, and went back out the next day to look at the gearbox clutch arm and started over again. It appears that even though I have set this on two Norton's over a period of years without a hitch, for some reason I did not set the lever arm correctly AND make make sure I wasn't pushing the arm out of position from the clutch side. This time, it settled in correctly. I 'undid' it all, and reset it again, and then again one more time. I started the bike, and the clutch worked!
Thank you everyone for taking a moment to help me with this-
Lesson learned: I should have not assumed I knew what I was doing, as it's been a few years since I set the clutch rod and clutch arm, and needed to pay more attention to what I was doing.

WooHoo! I guessed right on the second reply to your original post...see, I'm not just another pretty face, Eh?

Clutch Will NOT disengage

kommando

L.A.B.

Moderator

Tornado

RobBB

MichaelB

"Sons of Arthritus"

cliffa

Nortoniggy

Tornado

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