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Hello everyone,hope you can help!I am having a problem with my clutch.It has been in the garage for about six months with regular warm-ups but when I took it out the clutch started slipping.I changed the oil and filter with 10/40 and it kept happening,so I put in 15/50 and it was worse!Do I have to accept the inevitable and pay for a new clutch?Will I get away with just new plates?I've never fitted a clutch before but I am ok with a spanner.Any advice is appreciated.She is an '01 Falco.

the oil grade of the oil is not the cause - they type of oil may well be

what year and colour is your bike?

i am guessing you are using full synth oil - change to a 15/50 semi synth oil

grogbeast wrote:Hello everyone,hope you can help!I am having a problem with my clutch.It has been in the garage for about six months with regular warm-ups but when I took it out the clutch started slipping.I changed the oil and filter with 10/40 and it kept happening,so I put in 15/50 and it was worse!Do I have to accept the inevitable and pay for a new clutch?Will I get away with just new plates?I've never fitted a clutch before but I am ok with a spanner.Any advice is appreciated.She is an '01 Falco.

Hi and welcome.

First thing to ask is whether you are running fully-synth or semi-synth oil.
Some of the earlier Falcos clutches don't like fully synth oil and tend to slip.

If it's not that, then the next course of action is to strip your clutch down and roughen up the steel plates. I've heard of people doing this with emery cloth or rubbing them on a concrete floor.
Make sure you take good note of how it comes apart and put everything back in the right order.
Obviously check the friction plates are OK while you have it apart.

If you don't have a workshop manual, you can download it from Martin poll's website: http://www.martinpoll.dk/div_april.htm

Hope this helps

sounds like the oil..

cue entry stage left, one of the resident experts ..who actually got there first...

welcome by the way!

i was pleased i beat him to the post, then i remembered his age - poor lamb

(850 = cheeky bugger!)

Aladinsaneuk wrote:i was pleased i beat him to the post, then i remembered his age - poor lamb

(850 = cheeky bugger!)

BOTH posted at 6:03pm ..... one fractionally slower but containing considerably more useful information.

I think most would agree it was worth the delay of a few seconds ....

Mine slipped under heavy loads so after taking the guys advice on this forum I dismantled the clutch and cleaned everything and roughened up the plates :)

Easy job, just work methodically.

Blow me!You guys are quick!!!!Thanks for all the advice so far.Situation is as follows;both oils are semi synth,Castrol GPS 10/40 and Sigma rock oil 15/50. The bike definitely lasted longer on the 10/40.The 15/50 was slipping within 5 minutes under load.It sounds to me like a strip down and roughen up job is needed.Now that I know how fast you are,I think I will hang aroun for a while and wait(I usually hear my wife saying that!).

strip and roughen time

ndownload the aprilia workshop manual that andy linked too

also, search here, or af1 for clutch change or similar - there have been a lot of useful posts on the way to do it - trick is, as badgerpube san said, is to be methodical

iirc you will need both a torque wrench and loctite....

As the last post covers, you will need to strip down and roughen the plates.
As for the Castrol GPS Semi Synth., that is fine.
I have used it in mine for 20K miles.
Ever since the 10K service when the Aprilia dealer put in Putoline Syntech fully synthetic and it slipped like hell. Drained it out and filled with GPS 20k miles ago and fine, been using it ever since.

Many thanks to all of you.Now all I need to do is tie up the wife for a day or two so that I can get the time to do the work.I shall let you all know how things go.

She'll probably leave you if you leave her tied up too long, or was it the clutch you were talking about.

HowardQ wrote:She'll probably leave you if you leave her tied up too long, or was it the clutch you were talking about.

I thought that was the idea about tying them up; they can't leave and they're there anytime you want...

Yeh nice idea, but you have to untie them to do the cooking, house work shopping and gardening etc., and thats when they tend to bugger off, whilst you are out on the bike!