Hey guys, I have to replace the clutch lever and am stumped about how to get it off. When I am trying to loosen the nut on the lever it seems to get to the end of the threads and then the bolt pushes up on the handle bar attachement and spins freely. If I try to push down on the bolt from the top it is not possible for me to keep it in place without pushing up again once I try to wrench it loose. What I can't figure out is why the bolt (which uses a wedge to keep it in place when tightening it) allows for it to lift off the top when trying to loosen it. I am stumped. I have gone through the Clymer manual and it does not explain hwo to remove this one bolt. Any ideas?

When removing the lever loosen the lock nut on the cable and screw it all the way to the knurled end of the adjuster. Now screw the adjuster all the way out of the mount. HOLD your thumb on the top of the lever bold and completely remove the nut from the bottom not letting the bolt move up. Once the nut is off push the bolt all the way out and remover the lever from the mount. Take the cable out of the lever and do what ever you need to do. Be careful not to loose the brass bushing in the lever hole.

note - be VERY careful when replacing the lever.

the clutch switch has a thin plastic post which sticks out and operates the switch. this piece sticks right out when the lever is removed and is VERY easy to break if you ain´t careful.

Sounds like you have some experience breaking it!

Doc

So the problem that I have is that the flat headed bolt attaching the lever to the bracket is not letting me completely remove the nut. I guess I will try using a die to clean the threads. I have placed my thumb and anything else I could figure to hold that damn bolt down while I try to remove the nut but nothing is working. It acts like a nylon bushing hold in place nut that is staying in place. I also seem to be running into the problem of having Kuryakan chrome bolt on accessories having really bad thread issues. I have had to return two itmes due to really poorly manufactured threaded bolt holes. Anyone else running into this? Chinese made junk I am afraid. The levers I bought now also have this same issue. I am using tap and die clean ups on all of this stuff. Really irritating.

By the way thanks for the heads up on the switch. I saw that one coming form a mile away and steared clear of that problem.

If you can get a grip on the head with a small pair of pliers then just force the nut off the bolt is supposed to have a flat spot that holds it into place while you take the nut off. Maybe that flat spot is rounded or the one in the mount is wallowed out.

DocShadow wrote:
Sounds like you have some experience breaking it!

Doc

been there, buggered that.

Wow so I got the thing off and replaced the clutch lever and installed the new one and now have a really strange thing going on. I accidentally replaced the nut holding the clutch lever bolt in place ( the one with the weird headless bolt) with a different nut and realized it after tightening it in place. I found out what I had done when I needed to move the lever position and tried to loosen the nut to move it and could not retighten it. Now the nut spins without tightening or backing off. So it is stuck in place neither tight nor loose and it won't come off. It spins in place but the weird part is that the nut moves but not the bolt. The nut is seated just tight enough to be up against the clutch lever housing so I can't get anything between the nut and the housing to wedge it off. Anybody else have this kind of issue? Any suggestions? Guess I could cut the bolt off if I could replace the bolt with a factory new one.

Just a thought, perhaps if you have room, you could add a second nut behind the 1'st nut to tighten it up?

Can't do that cause I have to remove the first (wrong) nut. So I was wondering if it is possible to cut the damn thing off and replace it with another OEM bolt. Damn damn damn