For those who have not seen me mention this previously, due to some medical issues, I probably have the most heavily (and peculiarly) modded Super10 of anyone on this forum. :
Anyways, my clutch hand is following my left foot into stupidity and weakness. I can take a nice ride through the countryside like anyone else, but when I get home I can't feather the clutch well enough to park my bike in the garage. And I have to find neutral at long lights because I just can't hold the clutch that long.
Casting around for my next mod, I discovered the Rekluse clutch. I contacted them and they don't do the Super10. They referred me to EFM Autoclutch. It turned out that EFM was relatively close by (well, a couple hours drive) and that Garry at EFM was willing to install it into my bike at no extra charge, if I provided the parts. Fabulous, since I am no longer as able to wrench as I once was, either. So, I did it!
The way the EFM Autoclutch works, is that they take out the clutch springs and add a mechanism that has bearing balls in sloping channels radiating out from the center. At low RPMs the bearing balls slide to the center and the clutch freewheels. But as you accelerate, the balls are pushed out and the clutch plates are squeezed together. So the clutch is no longer applied by the lever; it is controlled by your RPM. As a result you can drive around in first gear without squeezing the clutch lever at all. But at higher RPMs the clutch plates stay locked together and the lever does nothing! Which means that when you go from first to second, second to third, etc, you have to shift clutchless. This is the thing that made Mercurydog decide that it wasn't for him - it's pretty weird in higher gears!
And for me, there's another wrinkle: Because I can no longer move the shift lever with my foot, I already had installed a pushbutton gear shifter made by Klicktronic. I don't have the dexterity people who shift with their foot, have. To upshift without a clutch, you preload the shifter with your foot, then you roll off a bit and it snicks upward. But with the Klicktronic, you either push the button or you don't; there's no preloading the lever. So after installing the EFM Autoclutch I now had a bike I could ride around in first gear, and park easily - but finding higher gears with the Klicktronic, was not going well at all.
Fortunately, there's another piece to this puzzle, and Garry at EFM knew what it was - he works with Klicktronic all the time! Klicktronic makes a module to add to their shifter, which interrupts the ignition on upshift. With this, when you push the upshift button, the coils lose power for an instant, and the gear shifts during this pause. So I ordered one and my husband installed it with some advice and moral support from me. :-* It has a second control box with a dial to adjust the length of the interrupt, that plugs into the existing control box, and leads that are spliced inline into the positive power supply wire to each of the coils. There is also a toggle switch for enabling/disabling it. The instructions said this is because I might need to disable the interrupt at low speeds. I discovered why when I tried to find neutral while sitting at a stop - as sometimes happens on downshift, it went from second to first and it didn't stop at neutral. I pushed the upshift button to try for neutral again, and click, the bike stopped. D'oh! Thinking about it, that's not surprising - when you're stopped, the ignition doesn't just come back on after being killed for the upshift.
I have been riding it around for the last two days. It is disconcerting to do everything without the clutch, but it works surprisingly well. It is smooth as butter if I upshift at less than 4000RPM. If I take the revs higher before upshifting it's a little clunkier. I think I may be able to smooth it a bit at higher revs by adjusting the length of the interruption. Meanwhile at parking lot speeds the EFM Autoclutch rolls on smoother if I give it a little more gas rolling out from a stop; if I am too tentative it is a bit noisy. I expect that will soon become habit.
So, still not quitting! It's always an adventure. ::001::
Anyways, my clutch hand is following my left foot into stupidity and weakness. I can take a nice ride through the countryside like anyone else, but when I get home I can't feather the clutch well enough to park my bike in the garage. And I have to find neutral at long lights because I just can't hold the clutch that long.
Casting around for my next mod, I discovered the Rekluse clutch. I contacted them and they don't do the Super10. They referred me to EFM Autoclutch. It turned out that EFM was relatively close by (well, a couple hours drive) and that Garry at EFM was willing to install it into my bike at no extra charge, if I provided the parts. Fabulous, since I am no longer as able to wrench as I once was, either. So, I did it!
The way the EFM Autoclutch works, is that they take out the clutch springs and add a mechanism that has bearing balls in sloping channels radiating out from the center. At low RPMs the bearing balls slide to the center and the clutch freewheels. But as you accelerate, the balls are pushed out and the clutch plates are squeezed together. So the clutch is no longer applied by the lever; it is controlled by your RPM. As a result you can drive around in first gear without squeezing the clutch lever at all. But at higher RPMs the clutch plates stay locked together and the lever does nothing! Which means that when you go from first to second, second to third, etc, you have to shift clutchless. This is the thing that made Mercurydog decide that it wasn't for him - it's pretty weird in higher gears!
And for me, there's another wrinkle: Because I can no longer move the shift lever with my foot, I already had installed a pushbutton gear shifter made by Klicktronic. I don't have the dexterity people who shift with their foot, have. To upshift without a clutch, you preload the shifter with your foot, then you roll off a bit and it snicks upward. But with the Klicktronic, you either push the button or you don't; there's no preloading the lever. So after installing the EFM Autoclutch I now had a bike I could ride around in first gear, and park easily - but finding higher gears with the Klicktronic, was not going well at all.
Fortunately, there's another piece to this puzzle, and Garry at EFM knew what it was - he works with Klicktronic all the time! Klicktronic makes a module to add to their shifter, which interrupts the ignition on upshift. With this, when you push the upshift button, the coils lose power for an instant, and the gear shifts during this pause. So I ordered one and my husband installed it with some advice and moral support from me. :-* It has a second control box with a dial to adjust the length of the interrupt, that plugs into the existing control box, and leads that are spliced inline into the positive power supply wire to each of the coils. There is also a toggle switch for enabling/disabling it. The instructions said this is because I might need to disable the interrupt at low speeds. I discovered why when I tried to find neutral while sitting at a stop - as sometimes happens on downshift, it went from second to first and it didn't stop at neutral. I pushed the upshift button to try for neutral again, and click, the bike stopped. D'oh! Thinking about it, that's not surprising - when you're stopped, the ignition doesn't just come back on after being killed for the upshift.
I have been riding it around for the last two days. It is disconcerting to do everything without the clutch, but it works surprisingly well. It is smooth as butter if I upshift at less than 4000RPM. If I take the revs higher before upshifting it's a little clunkier. I think I may be able to smooth it a bit at higher revs by adjusting the length of the interruption. Meanwhile at parking lot speeds the EFM Autoclutch rolls on smoother if I give it a little more gas rolling out from a stop; if I am too tentative it is a bit noisy. I expect that will soon become habit.
So, still not quitting! It's always an adventure. ::001::