Grooves on yamaha rage clutch faces :-(

fredster

New member
Since winter seems to have left lower Michigan I decided to do my summerization work today. When cleaning the clutches on my 2007 Yamaha Rage I noticed a series of grooves worn into both sides of the primary and secondary clutch faces. This sled has 5400 miles and I clean the clutches at the end of each year....have never noticed any grooves before. This year I did install a new 8DN belt at the start of the season and only rode 650 miles. The times I rode was with my son and NOT my wife so we were generally riding fairly hard, but not WFO or anything. I have noticed some weird shifting for a while and figured it was time for a rebuild but now it looks like I'll need a new clutch.

So....does anyone know what causes this and what I can do to avoid having it happen again? The secondary clutch grooves seem to more or less 'align' with the grooves on the primary - that is, it appears that whatever was causing it was doing it to both clutches (something in the belt?) at the same time. I looked over the belt closely and did not see any abnormal wear or other problems.

I also put a new 8DN belt on my son's 08 Vector at the same time and his clutches look great.

I was thinking about an ulmer clutch kit anyways so here we go!
 

tundra ron

New member
I had to change the clutch on my Venture with 8000 miles on it. The mech. at Highland said it was from pulling other sleds I have pulled 10 sleds out of the woods some as much as 20 miles. I put a used clutch on and it is fine. The old clutch had grooves in it like yours
 

fredster

New member
Thanks for the info...interesting as I have only towed a sled once, my wife's Pol 600 Classic and only for about 5 miles on a grooomed trail at moderate speed....and that was 3 years ago....but perhaps the damage started then and I didn't notice it. Weird.
 
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