Lamonster
SpyderLovers Founder
I know that's a little over the top but I've had some demons that were really bugging me and I spent the week casting them out. :thumbup:
None of them kept me from riding cross country or making my trip to Sturgis but they did need to be addressed at some point and now I feel like I have a new RT.
nojoke
For those of you that don't know my RT is a pre production unit and a lot of the things I had to deal with is not something the production units have to worry about. Part of the reason I got this unit was to report back to the factory about anything I saw that was not quite right or could be improved upon, that's one of the reasons why you have better front shocks on the 2011's.
One of the first things I wanted to fix was my pulsating brake pedal. I have the same issue on my RS and I've always related it to a warped rotor because I pretty much always run with a loaded trailer on the RS and the RT and when you ride it like you stole it and brake hard in the turns it really puts a lot of extra stress on those rotors and brake pads. I knew that at the time and when my RT started doing the same thing I figured it was time for new rotors and pads. If you ever change your rotors you want to do the pads at the same time. I had a couple of techs ride my RT and they thought it was warped rotors too so I ordered new ones and changed them out.
As you can see from the pics the pads still look great but when I changed them not that long ago all they had at the time was the old style pads that didn't have the backing on them to keep them from squealing.
Here's the new and the old style pads
Changing the pads is pretty easy. As you can see there are two pins on the cups that the retainer springs slip over.
What I do is pull the top of the pad out with my hand and then use a pick to pop the clip off.
When you put the new pads in you want to make sure the clip snaps in on the bottom and then push down on the pad to lock it in.
You might have to compress the pucks to get the new pads over the rotors, I just use a screwdriver to spread them out a bit.
I've changes pads on my RS and my RT but this time when I changed the pads I through a code because when you pump the pedal to seat the pads it will think it has low brake pressure. If you do throw a code you'll have to have your dealer clear it on BUDS. I know one other guy that this happened too also and the code did not clear itself. It won't go into limp mode or anything but you will have that light on the cluster till you get it cleared.
So I get the new rotors and pads on and I start to torque down the bolts on my rotors and I notice I have some play in the frontend. At first I thought it might be my ball joints but it was hard to tell so I called up Ron to give me a hand to see if we could tell where the play was coming from. Turns out that my lower a-arm bushings were showing the play. These were greased so my guess is the extra load of the trailer and braking hard like you do when you ride hard is putting an extra load on the front a-arm and bushings. I'm 99.9% sure that my rotors were fine and my real problem were the bushings. I went ahead and changed them all out and now my frontend is nice and tight and I'm no longer getting a pulsing pedal. So that demon has been cast out.
By the way the cushions and sleeves are the same as they use on their four wheelers. My sleeves were fine just the plastic cushions were bad but they really didn't look that bad. The "cushion" as they call it is a 706200181 and the steel sleeve "bushing" is a 706200618
So now that I have that fixed it's time to move on to the next demon, my clutch. I had the first RT that they used all needle bearings in after I developed a problem about 1000 miles into my first ride. This is another one of the changes that have been applied to all production RT's. That has worked out fine but about 8K to 10K miles ago I started to get a strange shutter if I just feathered out the clutch. It was fine if I loaded it up and took off but it didn't like just easing out on the throttle.
Back when I had the needle bearings changed in my centrifugal clutch the guys who put it back together got one plate off and that caused a lack of the 1-mm clearance. You are suppose to clock the last plate but they were use to doing ATV's where you clock the last two plates. I drove about 30K before finding out this was done. When I went to tech school we learned how to shim the plates for the proper clearance and I went to Kurt's place after school one night and we put in a new clutch hoping that was going to fix the problem and that's when we found the clearance problem, when we clocked the last plate it was back in spec but I think the damage was done and we didn't have the parts to rebuild the basket too.
I rode it home to East TN from WI and then rode it to Sturgis the way it was. Like I said as long as I loaded the clutch up it seemed to be fine. This week I got all the parts in to rebuild the clutch and I headed to my dealer at East TN ATV and they let me work with them on knocking down my demons. Pulling the clutch apart is no big deal but you have to pull the basket out to rebuild it and because the case has a tapper you have to pull the inner case to get it out and that was a pretty big job as you can see here.
Once we had the basket out I tore it down and inspected it looking for signs of wear. This is the back of the basket with the oil pump gear.
There's an inner and outer retainer plate that holds the springs in place. When I took it apart I could see that there was definitely something going on that wasn't right as you can see here. I'm still not sure what exactly caused this but it was good to see something wasn't right.
Inner spring retainer
Outer spring retainer
So I got that all rebuilt with new everything except for the clutch plates seeing I only had about 6K on those and they were working fine. Put the basket back in, put the inner case back on and installed all the plates and then check my clearance and had to add 1-mm to the shim to get the clearance I needed. Time to move on to the next demon.
When I would check the codes on BUDS I kept showing a code for me o2 sensors and a lean condition on number one cylinder. I would clear the codes and it would be fine for a while but then they would come back. It didn't really run that bad so I wasn't sure what was going on but while I had it tore down I went ahead and changed out the o2 sensors and I was going to change out the fuel injectors but I had an issue with the throttle body where it would throw a P1614 code. It only happen twice but one of the times it happened was when I had a film crew waiting for me in Sturgis to shoot some video. I was able to get it cleared but I didn't want to have to deal with that again so I went ahead and changed out the throttle body and it came with new fuel injectors in it. When we went to remove the old throttle body we noticed there was a plug off on the right side and that was causing a vacuum leak. That may have been the lean condition I was seeing on BUDS. Now I have a new throttle body and all is well. Just a tip for the techs that may run into a problem resetting the TPS on a new throttle body. When you change it out go ahead and start the bike before resetting the TPS, my dealer said they tried doing it before starting it like the book says and had issues but if they start the bike first and then set the TPS it will be fine. Mine is good to go. Moving on to the next demon.
The last demon for the day was adding a catch can for the oil breather. I had one on before but it got too hot and the bowl cracked and made a big oil mess all over my motor. No matter what you are going to get some blow-by and I just don't like it going into my air box so I rerouted it to a nice little catch can that I can drain when I change my oil.
Oh and I put a new rear tire on too. Man was that a great couple of days of work or what. All my demons are gone and I'm ready for another adventure. :thumbup:
None of them kept me from riding cross country or making my trip to Sturgis but they did need to be addressed at some point and now I feel like I have a new RT.
nojoke
For those of you that don't know my RT is a pre production unit and a lot of the things I had to deal with is not something the production units have to worry about. Part of the reason I got this unit was to report back to the factory about anything I saw that was not quite right or could be improved upon, that's one of the reasons why you have better front shocks on the 2011's.
One of the first things I wanted to fix was my pulsating brake pedal. I have the same issue on my RS and I've always related it to a warped rotor because I pretty much always run with a loaded trailer on the RS and the RT and when you ride it like you stole it and brake hard in the turns it really puts a lot of extra stress on those rotors and brake pads. I knew that at the time and when my RT started doing the same thing I figured it was time for new rotors and pads. If you ever change your rotors you want to do the pads at the same time. I had a couple of techs ride my RT and they thought it was warped rotors too so I ordered new ones and changed them out.
As you can see from the pics the pads still look great but when I changed them not that long ago all they had at the time was the old style pads that didn't have the backing on them to keep them from squealing.
Here's the new and the old style pads
Changing the pads is pretty easy. As you can see there are two pins on the cups that the retainer springs slip over.
What I do is pull the top of the pad out with my hand and then use a pick to pop the clip off.
When you put the new pads in you want to make sure the clip snaps in on the bottom and then push down on the pad to lock it in.
You might have to compress the pucks to get the new pads over the rotors, I just use a screwdriver to spread them out a bit.
I've changes pads on my RS and my RT but this time when I changed the pads I through a code because when you pump the pedal to seat the pads it will think it has low brake pressure. If you do throw a code you'll have to have your dealer clear it on BUDS. I know one other guy that this happened too also and the code did not clear itself. It won't go into limp mode or anything but you will have that light on the cluster till you get it cleared.
So I get the new rotors and pads on and I start to torque down the bolts on my rotors and I notice I have some play in the frontend. At first I thought it might be my ball joints but it was hard to tell so I called up Ron to give me a hand to see if we could tell where the play was coming from. Turns out that my lower a-arm bushings were showing the play. These were greased so my guess is the extra load of the trailer and braking hard like you do when you ride hard is putting an extra load on the front a-arm and bushings. I'm 99.9% sure that my rotors were fine and my real problem were the bushings. I went ahead and changed them all out and now my frontend is nice and tight and I'm no longer getting a pulsing pedal. So that demon has been cast out.
By the way the cushions and sleeves are the same as they use on their four wheelers. My sleeves were fine just the plastic cushions were bad but they really didn't look that bad. The "cushion" as they call it is a 706200181 and the steel sleeve "bushing" is a 706200618
So now that I have that fixed it's time to move on to the next demon, my clutch. I had the first RT that they used all needle bearings in after I developed a problem about 1000 miles into my first ride. This is another one of the changes that have been applied to all production RT's. That has worked out fine but about 8K to 10K miles ago I started to get a strange shutter if I just feathered out the clutch. It was fine if I loaded it up and took off but it didn't like just easing out on the throttle.
Back when I had the needle bearings changed in my centrifugal clutch the guys who put it back together got one plate off and that caused a lack of the 1-mm clearance. You are suppose to clock the last plate but they were use to doing ATV's where you clock the last two plates. I drove about 30K before finding out this was done. When I went to tech school we learned how to shim the plates for the proper clearance and I went to Kurt's place after school one night and we put in a new clutch hoping that was going to fix the problem and that's when we found the clearance problem, when we clocked the last plate it was back in spec but I think the damage was done and we didn't have the parts to rebuild the basket too.
I rode it home to East TN from WI and then rode it to Sturgis the way it was. Like I said as long as I loaded the clutch up it seemed to be fine. This week I got all the parts in to rebuild the clutch and I headed to my dealer at East TN ATV and they let me work with them on knocking down my demons. Pulling the clutch apart is no big deal but you have to pull the basket out to rebuild it and because the case has a tapper you have to pull the inner case to get it out and that was a pretty big job as you can see here.
Once we had the basket out I tore it down and inspected it looking for signs of wear. This is the back of the basket with the oil pump gear.
There's an inner and outer retainer plate that holds the springs in place. When I took it apart I could see that there was definitely something going on that wasn't right as you can see here. I'm still not sure what exactly caused this but it was good to see something wasn't right.
Inner spring retainer
Outer spring retainer
So I got that all rebuilt with new everything except for the clutch plates seeing I only had about 6K on those and they were working fine. Put the basket back in, put the inner case back on and installed all the plates and then check my clearance and had to add 1-mm to the shim to get the clearance I needed. Time to move on to the next demon.
When I would check the codes on BUDS I kept showing a code for me o2 sensors and a lean condition on number one cylinder. I would clear the codes and it would be fine for a while but then they would come back. It didn't really run that bad so I wasn't sure what was going on but while I had it tore down I went ahead and changed out the o2 sensors and I was going to change out the fuel injectors but I had an issue with the throttle body where it would throw a P1614 code. It only happen twice but one of the times it happened was when I had a film crew waiting for me in Sturgis to shoot some video. I was able to get it cleared but I didn't want to have to deal with that again so I went ahead and changed out the throttle body and it came with new fuel injectors in it. When we went to remove the old throttle body we noticed there was a plug off on the right side and that was causing a vacuum leak. That may have been the lean condition I was seeing on BUDS. Now I have a new throttle body and all is well. Just a tip for the techs that may run into a problem resetting the TPS on a new throttle body. When you change it out go ahead and start the bike before resetting the TPS, my dealer said they tried doing it before starting it like the book says and had issues but if they start the bike first and then set the TPS it will be fine. Mine is good to go. Moving on to the next demon.
The last demon for the day was adding a catch can for the oil breather. I had one on before but it got too hot and the bowl cracked and made a big oil mess all over my motor. No matter what you are going to get some blow-by and I just don't like it going into my air box so I rerouted it to a nice little catch can that I can drain when I change my oil.
Oh and I put a new rear tire on too. Man was that a great couple of days of work or what. All my demons are gone and I'm ready for another adventure. :thumbup:
pps:
ray:
