I bought a used L0206 last year and had problems with the clutch by the fourth race I ran with it. I did not notice any “slipping” or problems accelerating but I kept throwing the chain. I switched to a new rear sprocket, double checked alignment and tension many times. There were experienced people at the track that looked at my setup and couldn’t spot anything wrong until we noticed a lot of wobble or lateral play in the clutch. I removed the clutch today expecting to see an obviously damaged bearing, but it looks okay to my inexperienced eyes. Can anyone spot anything? Anything obvious that would cause the chain to keep throwing? Is my best bet to just junk this clutch and get a new one?
This is hard to diagnose via pics. Was the play in the drum only or in the whole clutch. In other words, with the clutch tight on the engine, can you move just the drum or the hub too?
It sounds like you may need another crank spacer on inside of clutch. OR replace bearing and race, and drive gear. Don’t replace the whole clutch because of this. It would be a waste of money.
It kind of seemed like the whole assembly was wobbling when it rotated. I guess I have no idea what the actual issue is, it just looked wrong when the clutch is wobbling on rotation. But again, the bearing seems okay.
Maybe I should replace the race and bearing and change my spacing setup. I really don’t how the spacing works. I didn’t make any changes to the spacing and never encountered any issues on the clutch until the last race of the season.
What would cause the chain to keeping getting thrown? I don’t think it is the chain or sprocket (both were replaced at the track to try to fix the issue) or alignment, which multiple people checked out for me.
I would suggest going back to the schematics for that clutch, looks like a Flame? and ensuring all the appropriate spacers are in their correct order. There shouldn’t be any “float” in the clutch body itself, where it’s actually a bit free on the end of the crank, as that will wear out the keyway. There should be some lateral freedom with the drum and drive sprocket, maybe .030-050".
I’ve heard that the motor mount can cause or remedy the chain bring thrown. I have a TDC motor mount and have no issues with my Hilliard Fire Clutch.
Thanks, that schematic is really helpful. It is a Hilliard “bully conversion,” it that changes anything. I will re-install this clutch according to the schematic. Maybe get a bearing and race just for the heck of it.
I don’t think it is the mount, since I haven’t changed that and have had a few trouble free weekends with it.
Do you think it is possible that this slop is the cause of my chain woes? I realize that I do not have the chamfered bush on my setup. But I never did… I will order the correct parts and put them on in the correct order and see where that gets me unless anyone has any other ideas. The last weekend of the season the chain would not last more than 5 laps… and I had a lot of ppl look at my setup, they found no issues with the tension and we were using a new chain and sprocket. Only thing we noticed (at the end of the day) was the slop or wobble in the clutch.
yeah if your frame is cracked, or just if the frame flexes a lot, the chain might fly off. have someone check if your chain gets really slack once you actually sit in the kart. and as Matt said, the bully conversion is really sloppy, and will get sloppier and sloppier as the season wears on. if you do get another hilliard flame, just get it with the hilliard drum and driver, don’t do the bully conversion.
I ended up replacing the Bully conversion clutch entirely so I could be sure that everything I have on there is working correctly. I have no idea how old the Bully clutch that came on the kart is or whether I have the appropriate hardware on it because I couldn’t even find any instructions online. As Bubba suggested, I with a regular Hilliard flame, just because I see no advantage to the Bully drum and I couldn’t find the instructions anyway so had no way to bet sure it was installed correctly with the correct spacers and things. The new clutch looks much less sloppy so we’ll see how it goes at the track. I hope to do some practice laps this coming weekend.
Just got out to the track and had no clutch or chain issues at all with the 100% Hilliard setup. Fingers crossed that continues for a while. I was running a bit tight on chain tension but will back that off to normal tension (2cm up and down) next week.
Great! Just did my first race weekend of the year. I believe this chain issue is resolved and it was caused by slop in the clutch. Thanks for your input everyone.
@Yousef_Khalil did you use both the “thin washers”? When we assembled the clutch, with the two washers, the clutch overhang to the engine shaft was about 0.080". We removed both of them and the overhang is down to the expected 0.020" to 0.030".
I think thats pretty normal. I dont know whether the variance is in clutch hubs or crank chamfers or what, but sometimes I use 2 thin, sometimes I use 1 thin, sometimes I use 1 thick one. Just do what it needs to get the right spacing.
