New precision bearing clutch for CG engines: Installation adventures!

You never truly wake till:

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Well that wasn't that big of a deal. The old 49 cc engine's clutch shaft had the same size Woodruff key width and the old clutch practically fell off after I loosened the fixing nut. I'm going to use the stock Pink Pearl eraser clutch pads until my order for the black/grey ones show up.

Nifty light action on this clutch, a tiny bit grabby but the big deal is the gear noise is almost silent. Cleaned all the old grease of the small "bevel gear". I'm not sure why it's called that, these gears are not bevel gears like the cam gears on a bevel-gear head Ducatis.

Have to do an in depth clean and tune of the PeeDub 50 carb, as it's being a little overly lean and the starting circuit isn't feeding enough fuel.
 
LewieBike said:
I'm going to use the stock Pink Pearl eraser clutch pads until my order for the black/grey ones show up.
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Take some pics of the pads on the clutch basket before you replace the pink pads, I wanna see how badly blackened and smoked they are before you replace them...I ran pinks once some years ago for three days and couldn't believe how burnt they were in that short of time with only 25 miles on them during those three days.
 
So when I get a chance, doing to deep clean on the floatbowl. The main, pilot and enrichment jet, bottom of the bowl is a mess of old deposits and crud. I let the bike sit since 2020 and drained the tank and forgot to drain the carb.
 
Pink clutch pads are back in the clutch, who knew that reusing the old, used pads from the old clutch were a bad idea.

Actually I did but I went ahead and swapped them anyways.

So these 'better', 45 count, black and grey waffle pattern clutch pads arrived and they are all gonna need some fettling. I'm not sure what the consensus is about these softer compound pads, but they seem to be made of old conveyor belts, and they aren't exactly really precise or even the same thickness, and will need fiddly trimming to fit easily inside the windows in the big clutch gear.

So I'm getting out a side cutter and scissors to work over each pad so they drop in without needing a 5 ton press to install. I think I like the pink pads better. For one, they actually fit perfectly.

The ring gear's running with out appreciable wobble is a a big problem with these 'better' clutch pads.

The pink pads all self align because they all fit closely without assuming arbitrary depths in the clutch gear. The pink pads do engage harshly but this is a 48 cc motor assisted bicycle and you pedal up to speed and engage the clutch as gently as possible. There is considerably less drag with the pink pads with clutch disengaged when pedal power is the only option.
 
ImpulseRocket said:
There is a reason almost all of us use them over the reddish pads. Also, whatever you do, don't get the green ones.
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Well, my experience presently is at odds with you guys... I like the reddish ones, I think I just wasted $7 buying the black pads.

So OK, if this is the consensus then should definitely get the green pads.
 
LewieBike said:
Well, my experience presently is at odds with you guys... I like the reddish ones, I think I just wasted $7 buying the black pads.

So OK, if this is the consensus then should definitely get the green pads.
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Yeah, they're a kinda tight fit. I got them in there by putting them in at an angle, and squeeeeeeezing them in the rest of the way. Have you ridden it? I'm pretty sure riding it will level out the pads and push them in all the way.
 
Johnny_ said:
Yeah, they're a kinda tight fit. I got them in there by putting them in at an angle, and squeeeeeeezing them in the rest of the way. Have you ridden it? I'm pretty sure riding it will level out the pads and push them in all the way.
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So here's the deal. The big gear is rather dependent on the precision of the bearings supporting it and the little gear for alignment. And I need the pads to float in their relationship to the driving face and the alignment of the big gear, and this is part of why I'm going with this clutch. It makes far less noise and there's far less of the cyclic snatch of the gear when it's fighting it's alignment to the little gear and clutch face. And it's running perfectly concentric to the clutch disk because of the precision bearing.

Remember the original clutch had no centering ball bearings and had about 0.050" out of round looseness, and it wobbled axially too.

Yes I've ridden it for a few laps of our 600' driveway and it far better this way. I want this bike to have some smoothness when the engine is just above idle at 10 to 15 mph when I'm both pedaling and having the engine as an assist. You never saw the original clutch on this with the old pads, the clutch gear was oscillating about 0.25"~0.3" because the old black pads were forcing it off axis, this makes the gears noisy and creates more wear.

The old black pads never did level out or equalize, if anything they got worse. I prefer this far more. It was like running a manual transmissioned car with a warped pressure plate.
 
LewieBike said:
So I'm getting out a side cutter and scissors to work over each pad so they drop in without needing a 5 ton press to install. I think I like the pink pads better. For one, they actually fit perfectly.
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I press my black and white pads in with my badly arthritic hands and fingers without too much of a problem...They will easily conform themselves into the slots in the clutch basket...I start by easing them in one at a time with the small end working my way up to the larger end of the pad and I sometimes use the round boxed end of a 10mm wrench to sink it in.

Mine last me thousands of miles before having to replace them which is every 3 to 4 thousand miles on my Phantoms.
 
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