Clutch slipping on my new 4th gen VFR

I'm a bit late to the topic on this one but just food for thought. When I bought my wife a 96 VFR750 last year I noticed the clutch seemed to be a little weird. After looking at the condition and color of the clutch fluid I assumed that it had not been changed since new. The PO never changed out the fluid in the 8 years he had it because he said the clutch felt fine. Needless to say, I did not agree and changed it once we got home. The Bike sat in the garage over the winter and when I went to start it up this spring, the clutch had NO pressure and I noticed the reservoir empty. I refilled the reservoir and found out that the slave cylinder was leaking.

I was was going to try a rebuild kit at first but in my home town the cheapest rebuild kit was fairly expensive. I checked online and found a new OEM slave cylinder for the bike at Partzilla.com for only $69 US. After installing the new slave cylinder the difference was amazing. The wasn't slipping any more and it engaged and disengaged freely. When I took the slave cylinder apart I noticed a lot of wear on the piston bore and on the slave piston itself. Maybe if your slave is getting stuck on its return travel once you release the clutch lever the slave piston might not retract completely causing the slippage you mentioned. Your symptoms sound similar to what my bike was doing at first, so maybe..................

worth th a look maybe.

 

The old adage "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink." comes to mind. ^nuff said, tough to rebuild or clean a slave, 70 dollars is cheap insurance and its well worth the investment, but some times people have to learn the hard way.

 

If you cleaned your master cylinder correctly, if you take the honda think anti splash doo-hickee off, and operated the clutch lever slowly, you will see fluid in the master returning in that orifice that you supposedly cleaned. Good Luck.

 

That's the shiny metal cover.

there are two holes, one large and one tiny underneath the silver cover. the reason it happens when cold is that the slave piston to cylinder clearance is tighter when cold and the piston doesn't retract, then when it heats up the clearance opens up and lets it slide back. Maybe a dirty slave if the return orifice is really clean.

 

Try changing the oil and filter. Maybe the PO dude thought that Slick 50 really works.

 

But would Slick 50 stop working once it warmed up

 

Slick 50 is a line of products and kind of a joke around here. Not the best stuff for a wet clutch. No telling what the PO did or didn't do to the bike. Being an Occams Razor sort of dude, another oil and filter change might effect a fix . Next would be your suggestion of checking out the clutch for wear. Seen a bunch of "clutch riders" in my time.

OMG are we talking aboot oil again?

 

I guess if the fluid in the clutch system looks good and you're sure there's no junk in the Master or slave then the next step would be to pull the side cover off the motor and look at the clutch plates.

You may need new clutch plates and/or springs.