This is pretty much a repost of what I posted in the Ninja 250 thread. My wife's 250 started making bad noises... the rubber buffers in the basket disintegrated. I bought a used basket off of Ebay, it's a little better, but I doubt it'll hold up for long. There's a plate on the backside of the basket that has pins that pass through the main drive gear. The gear floats while the plate and pins are solid to the basket. The plate and gear actually contact and it looks like a good welder could run a bead to make the whole thing solid without stressing the base metals much. But, what would a solid basket do to the rest of the drive line? I know that almost all clutch assemblies have some means of dampening shock loads... this would remove that ability from this clutch.
I think you just answered your own question. I suspect, even if you could weld the basket, it would be a short term recipe for destroying the transmission.
yeah that's there to keep it from destroying the trans. can you not just buy new rubber bumpers from bikebandit.com?
Looks like it would not be possible in any case, it appears that one part is aluminum and the other steel so welding them together would not be an option... from http://faq.ninja250.org/wiki/What's_that_noise_coming_from_the_clutch?
The left basket; the red mark is one of the pins, the lighter grey metal around it is the plate and it's steel, the darker gear underneath it is also steel. Those are the parts I was considering welding up as those two parts are where the bushings are located (between the pins and the gear). But, I know that would kill the transmission in time. I was just hoping someone would come along and tell me they have done it plenty of times without trouble. A new basket is almost $300, the bike is worth fixing, but I was looking to replace it this summer and would like to avoid spending that much on it... guess I'll have to anyway!
soooooooo........ the rubber bits are inside the 2 plates & they are riveted? a desperate guy could grind or drill off the rivets, install new rubber, & then bolt it back together
It's been done before. There's a writeup on one of the 250 forums where a guy used a certain rubber from a tube and formed his own. I have an extra basket, but I'm not sure how tough the pins need to be. The cost of a new basket vs. the cost of replacing the engine should a cheap repair fail.... eh, I'll just bite it and buy a new basket.
Skippii? Oh,... errr, uhm, yeah... Speaking of Skippii, maybe I should tread lightly when considering ghetto repairs. But no, it wasn't. At least not to my knowledge.
the pins are mostly loaded in shear with little tensile load on them. keep the original pins... mill off the shop heads, drill down the center of the pins & thread 'em for bolts
Scary thing is I was thinking the exact same thing. That or just knocking out a set of custom pins on the CNC lathe. I have been considering something using external clips... it would be pretty easy to do, but I already have way too many parts to run as it is.