After a short ride down to our local Austrian restaurant (Moser's in New Carlisle, IN) I notice my boot was incredibly shiny. Now since I haven't had my Sidis polished in a while, this struck me as odd. Yup, I had an oil leak. At first it wasn't obvious what the origin of this automatic boot lubricator might be. But, after parking the bike for a bit, a little puddle formed and the apparent source was revealed. The oil was coming from somewhere in the clutch assembly. As they say in proctology, time to dig in.
(http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e297/pennyrobber/clutch/clutch1.jpg)
Armed with a garage worthy beverage and a spooky light, the journey begins. Here, the oil puddle can be seen. I'm sure the British bike guys would laugh at me for being concerned with such little oil on the ground. All I can say is, we weren't all born to be rockers.
(http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e297/pennyrobber/clutch/clutch2.jpg)
My first thoughts were that the leak was coming from the ring seal behind the clutch basket. I was hoping this wasn't the case as we'd be looking at an oil change and pulling the case cover. It's not that I don't love pulling case covers, okay actually that is the reason. So off come the clutch cover, pressure plate and clutch plates. All pretty strait forward.
(http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e297/pennyrobber/clutch/clutch3.jpg)
Now comes the fun part. Bolt your handy clutch hub tool up to the case. If you have a dry clutch, one of these babies should definitely reside in your tool box. It's made of urethane or something of the sort but it's solid and it needs to be for this next bit.
(http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e297/pennyrobber/clutch/clutch4.jpg)
So here's the part where cheaters prosper and all those pull ups you should have been doing pay off. If I can say one thing for the good folks on the Ducati assembly line, they can sure torque the shite out of a bolt. Now we take a quick time out for a tech tip.
Tech tip: There are washers, spacers, and maybe an o-ring that hide underneath this nut. Remember the order they came out in or refer to your shop manual. Don't have a shop manual? Next time you're surfing ebay for that signed first edition Britney Spears album, get the shop manual instead.
(http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e297/pennyrobber/clutch/clutch5.jpg)
The clutch basket is held on by the bolts you see here. It's a good idea to put the clutch hub tool back on to remove these guys. They can be a bit snug due to the red thread locker, which you will need to reapply during assembly.
(http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e297/pennyrobber/clutch/clutch6.jpg)
Well, we have arrived. Jules Verne would be proud. A sludge of oil and clutch dust graces the case cover but it doesn't appear to be originating from the ring seal. The ring seal is the rubber thing on the outside of that shiny bit.
(http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e297/pennyrobber/clutch/clutch7.jpg)
It isn't entirely obvious from the picture but the ring seal is quite dry. At this point, I was somewhat baffled as there was no obvious sign of an oil leak. Running the engine briefly revealed nothing.
(http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e297/pennyrobber/clutch/clutch8.jpg)
This shot shows the pass through for the clutch push rod. You can see the needle bearing just behind the o-ring. The o-ring was shot. I should have noticed this earlier but I had already made my mind up that the ring seal was the problem. Oil was leaking past this o-ring onto the back of the pressure plate where it was being flung outward, coating everything including my leg.
(http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e297/pennyrobber/clutch/clutch9.jpg)
The culprit in the flesh. The o-ring was well worn and seemed almost brittle in a similar way worn lay shaft seals appear. If you are unfamiliar with the lay shaft seal, it lives behind the crank pulley. If you find oil seeping from beneath your belt cover, your bookie has a 2-3 that it's the lay shaft seal. The good people at Ducati Indianapolis sent the part to me the next day.
(http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e297/pennyrobber/clutch/clutch10.jpg)
Everything goes back together the way it came apart. Remember to use anti-seize on the clutch hub nut and thread locker on the clutch basket bolts. Plates go back in the order they came out. Most importantly, go slow and inspect bits as you go so you don't end up taking off way more parts than necessary.
Cheers
I still do not understand where the oil came from.
I thought the o ring was there to prevent grime to get into the bearing and that there would be no oil inside the pass through for the clutch push rod.
There is definitely oil inside the push rod pass through. I don't think it's an oil passage Per se, but it does lead into the crank case. With everything taken apart, once the engine was started, you can feel the pressure pulses coming from pass through.
So... if you notice some oil on your foot, you could go the easy route and pull the clutch push-rod out from the slave side and replace the o-rings, or... you could do what you did. ;D
There's two O-rings on the left end of the clutch pushrod, and the seal in the end of the input shaft that pennyrobber replaced on the right side.
Bad O-rings will have oil leaking on the left side of the engine, bad seal will have oil on the right.