Just want to double check as I think silver steel should be perfectly alright for the job.
Reason
I will probably be replacing my existing pushrod with a different one, because I swapped out my clutch slave cylinder. As I don’t like having the bike off the road for long as I use it everyday for work; I was thinking of getting a length of silver steel rod and cutting to a desired length.
Any comments on the merits of silver steel or an alternative appreciated.
I have succesfully used a length of silver steel before to replace a selector shaft in my Stornello. That works fine.
I also run a T140 Bonneville and it is quite common to need to adjust the length of the clutch push rod, the general recommendation is to harden the cut ends by heating to cherry red and quenching. I’m not sure if that would be necessary with silver steel?
Hi Brian, as you probably know you need the special clutch rod tool (part number 020678Y) to determine the correct length of push rod on the CARC models. We bought the tool when changing the clutch on a Stelvio a couple of months ago. Once the length of rod is determined you need to select the rod from the four lengths available as spares. The lengths go from 183.00mm up to 187.5mm in 1.5mm steps. I assume you have the swing arm, rear shock and slave cylinder off the bike so you can get to the rod. The rod is 6mm diameter (ours measured at 5.98mm) and I would have used a silver steel rod if necessary. As it happened after the new clutch assy was installed the tool showed a rod length shorter than the original was required so we cut it and redomed and polished the end. The clutch now works fine. I did sketch up the tool but can’t find it at the moment. However I can get hold of the tool a re-do the sketch if it would help you. Just let me know. Cheers Phil
As I mentioned I have fitted a different clutch slave cylinder to the bike and this makes the rod length a wee bit different too, so that’s why I am looking at a custom rod; if you do have a sketch of the tool that would be most useful otherwise I will poke the long length in and check from there. This will determine how much the clutch pushrod bearing assembly will protrude out of the back of the gearbox into the slave housing.
Hi Brian, I have found the sketch of the tool and sent it to you by e mail. When you say you have swapped out the slave cylinder is it a new Moto Guzzi one or something non standard? If it is a new Moto Guzzi one nothing changes as the rod length only varies with clutch component changes. If you have fitted a non standard cylinder you will need to determine the piston protrusion and travel and compare it to standard and then calculate what effect they will have on rod length. It would appear that you only have 1.5mm of freeway in you decision making. Cheers Phil
Thanks for the diagram, should be able to do something with it. I have used an older version slave cylinder which is bigger diameter reducing the effort.
I was looking at an Oberon but found one of these, had a new piston machined.
I now have the “new” pushrod, but will probably wait until I regrease the swing arm bearings again, before fitting. @Phil kindly sent me some drawings of the tool used - much appreciated for that.
With the larger piston it won’t go down the hole so I need the thrust bearing to be proud. I had thought that I had worn my plates down a bit as I was getting difficulty selecting first gear ( I commute a fair bit around greater London).
I found that the clutch lever pivot hole had worn oval giving me too much play this time, last time the bolt had worn oval. So I drilled out and inserted a sleeve which has improved things.
