Honda CB600F Hornet

My Hornet is now almost two months old, the clutch actuator has just
broken for the second time. First time was at around 400km (10 days
old), this week it happened again at 1900km.

Local Honda agent is willing, but at a complete loss as to why it's
breaking, and agrees with two gone now, there's little point in just
fitting a new lever (apparently it's about a day's work each time
too).

Anyone had the same issue, or any (constructive) ideas?

Karen


If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning.' Catherine Aird

 

Can you be more specific about which bit you mean and how it's breaking?
Pictures would be good.

If the mechanism is the same as the 06 Hornet and countless other
Hondas, the clutch center is pushed by a cam cut into a more-or-less
vertical shaft in the clutch cover, which turns when a short lever on
the top of it is pulled on by the clutch cable. I'm assuming you mean
that lever is snapping?

Is the clutch action at all rough-feeling? Does seem very odd.

-----sharks

 

Hi Karen. My sympathy to you.... it must be frustrating to have bought
a new bike and then find something like this to stuff up what should be
a good experience.

I can only assume that Honda, in their infinite wisdom choose to
lighten, change or otherwise stuff a perfectly good reliable bike.

The older Hornets didn't seem to have any such problem.

Maybe ask your dealer is the equivalent part from an old model Hornet
600 fits? <shrug> Clutching at straws here!

regards,
CrazyCam

 

They aren't something that normally breaks (I assume you mean the part
the clutch lever bolts to ?) it's not exactly a highly stressed part -
there's something seriously wrong in either the quality of the metal
or the manufacture of the part.

A day's work ? That is complete and utter bollocks. Fitting a new
lever takes about 3 mins. Fitting a new clutch perch - 20mins tops.
Add 15mins if it's hydraulic not cable and you have to bleed the
system (pretty sure a hornet 600 is cable though)

Errm are there any other dealers around that might not lie to you ?

JL
It's quite hard to find a competent dealer, but hell, that's up there
on the list of tall stories told to customers

 

They aren't something that normally breaks (I assume you mean the part
the clutch lever bolts to ?) it's not exactly a highly stressed part -
there's something seriously wrong in either the quality of the metal
or the manufacture of the part.

Errm are there any other dealers around that might not lie to you ?

JL
It's quite hard to find a competent dealer, but hell, that's up there
on the list of tall stories told to customers


I think he means the part that pushes the throwout rod at the clutch end.

Boxer

 

I think DB is going to report that it's the other end of the clutch
cable, where the pivot mechanism transfers the lever action to the
clutch plates. I've no idea how complex stripping down that case etc
is, but it's got be more than three minutes.

Perhaps it's a poorly tempered batch of parts?

God bless hydraulic clutches (so far so good, anyway).

Hope it gets sorted permanently DB.

Mr Bee

 

She not he.

Yeah I saw Cam's posting suggesting that alternative. OK, so 8 bolts for
the cover and undoing the cable - alright I allow that the apprentice
might take a whole hour including 45mins sitting in the loo tossing off.

I'm a pretty bodgy mechanic and even I wouldn't allow a day for that job.

JL

 

This is NOT the clutch lever braking, it's the actuator lever within
the clutch housing. Engine has to be drained, covers removed & so on.

I'm going to write to Honda about it, as soon as I can find a mailing
address to write to - this is not easy to find though as none of my
Honda documentation gives me a mail address.

Karen


If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning.' Catherine Aird

 

Sorry, I haven't seen the part myself, when I picked the bike up
yesterday the broken bit was already in the mail to Honda for warranty
purposes. I gather from Honda that it's a tapered lever that gets very
thin at the end, which is where it's failing.

Clutch is light & smooth, not at all rough feeling. Much lighter than
the Ducati Monster that they loaned me while the Hornet was being
fixed (never want to ride that Monster again, dreadful clapped out old
thing that it was. Never got it out of 3rd gear)

Drove the bike home very nervously last night, was expecting the
clutch to fail again each time I touched the lever

Karen


If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning.' Catherine Aird

 

Horseshit. Removing the clutch cover *does*not* disturb the oil if the
bike is so much as resting on the sidestand.

Even then, big whoop; the clutch cover is held on by what, a dozen
bolts at the most. The clutch actuator is retained - in order of
increasing difficulty - by a mechanism akin to a rifle bolt (over-
rotate and just pull out), a circlip or a press-fit into a ball
bearing which is, in turn, pressed into the clutch housing.

And this is on a nudiebike, too. There's no way on this or any other
planet the job should take more than an hour, roll-in-ride-out.

 

What's confusing me is that if the innards are as you (and I) are
assuming they are, there's nothing there to snap off ... the "actuator"
is a cam cut _into_ the shaft. Unless the shaft itself is breaking. If
that's the case, I'd suspect something had been misaligned in
manufacture, or the bearing which is supposed to support one end or the
other was missing.

-----sharks

 

Other way around, actually... because the actuator is on the outside
of the clutch, as it rotates, it has to *pull* the clutch pressure
plate off the plate stack against the resistance of the clutch
springs.

On the R1, for example, there's a fairly largish ball bearing in the
centre of the pressure plate with a flanged bit of what looks to be
*alloy* dowel held captive (the flange catches on the inner track of
the ball bearing, the body of the dowel sticks out). There's a rack
cut into one side of the dowel, and a gear cut around the
circumference of the clutch actuator stuck into the clutch cover. This
gear engages the rack so what when you pull the clutch lever and
rotate the actuator, the gear pulls the dowel outwards by the rack,
thus disengaging the clutch.

On all my Kawasakis, though, the steel actuator (much smaller than the
alloy item on the R1) terminates in a two pronged claw which engages
either side of a small flange on the tip of a steel pin-type thing
sticking out of the clutch pressure plate. as the actuator rotates,
the claws pull the pin flange outwards, taking the pressure plate with
them. On bikes with very high kms or with tuned motors - which require
stiffer clutch springs, these claws have been known to wear out or
bend.

I'd bet the latter is what's happening with DB's bike, and I'd propose
that the pin on the clutch pressure plate which mates up to the
actuator is to blame. If they replace both the pin and the actuator,
the problem will go away.

 

Ah, well, perhaps *something* has changed since the eighties after all
;-), 'cos the CX650 clutch worked as I described ... and looks a lot
like the Hornet one from the outside at least.

The XLV clutch, disengages the clutch when a rod (right down the middle
of the gearbox input shaft) pushes it out ...

Ms. Bunny (do you mind if I call you Duracell?) might find this amusing:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8484100344408283917
I couldn't work out why this had anything to do with "moto stunt" until
I saw the state of the clutch plates at about 11:10 ...

Agree that if new parts keep breaking in the same place it's probably
the fault of a mating part.

Aha! Just went to oemmotorparts.nl again ... Turns out I was looking at
a 2005 Hornet ... Dunno about the new Hornet, but the 2006 CBR600F flips
the parts around so must work something like IK describes.

-----sharks

 

http://www.bikebandit.com/houseofmotorcycles/showschematic/m1973sch412681
http://www.bikebandit.com/houseofmotorcycles/showschematic/m1973sch413556

I can't imagine what's breaking....
Maybe the cam-end of the vertical shaft is rounding-off.

 

So having established that the dealer is lying through their clenched
teeth about the time it takes to diassemble said assembly, are we
agreed that he (or she if a very rare occurence is true) is probably
also lying about their other efforts to remedy it ?

Bottom line Ms Bunny. Take their existing assertions with a large
quantity of NaCl and ask some severe questions about their competence
and application to remediation. Or to be more blunt, kick 'em in the
'nads with a pair of blunnies.

Have a look at the piccies from OEMPARTS that Clem posted and ask
yourself how long it would take you to undo those bolts, compare and
contrast to what you've been told to date, draw conclusions about
dealer veracity from there.

JL

 

You would if there were already half a dozen other bikes already booked
in for work that day. Also, being a warranty job from the sounds of it,
however long it takes shouldn't really be of any consequence to the OP.

Nev..
'07 XB12X

 

<chuckle> I want you on my team next time I have to convince the powers
that be about how I need extra head count !!

For the record the time it takes to do the job is uncorrelated to the
amount of other jobs in the queue (just in case Ms DB falls for your spin)

Indeed the only relevance of the duration was their attempt to gain
sympathy for their incompetence from the OP. Worked too it would seem.
Shame they were lying.

JL

 

The first time or the second time?

Nev..
'07 XB12X