Weird? or is it? 75/6

It's the spot welds on the pressure plate that can come away.The plate under my broken pushrod.

well, I didnt really inspect that. I will get the opportunity soon enough. I am fighting the urge to dig back into it but I need to get another bike tuned up for a ride this weekend. Thanks for the help!

Quick update without resolution at this point. Tore it back down. This time I did not remove the swingarm completely. just pushed it back with the shocks undone. That saved me a bunch of time. Removed the clutch and torqued the flywheel bolts. 45 ft/lbs I believe. the flywheel looked to be well seated all the way around the crank. I lubed the spring diaphragm on the flywheel side with a thin coat of bearing grease and a thin coat on the fingers where they press on the pressure plate. The pressure plate seems okay. Spot welds appear to be holding fine. I replaced the clutch and torqued everything down to the manual specs. Trans went back in without trouble and I am almost all the way back together now. Ran out of time last night but I hope to either run it in the garage tonight or maybe ride it tomorrow.

Also , I forgot to take any pushrod pics. I will say that even with the pushrod pulled back about an inch out of contact I still had the noise so that should rule out the pushrod no? I did relube the flat bearing while I had it out and the "race?" looked shiny smooth on both sides. no pitting whatsoever. I also forgot to mention that this time I went over the friction disk and contacting metal sufaces with 220 grit before reassembly.

I just fired it up. sounds normal again.!! I am guessing that I was hearing the diaphragm spring making noise up against the flywheel. Anyway, the things that I know I did differently. I lubed the diaphragm spring (both sides) and set the clutch bolts to the spec torque. I think it was one of those things. I suspect it was the spring. Anyway, I will put a few miles on it before I call it a sucess but until then I am very optimistic. Thanks for all the help.

Glad to hear it!

Thanks for posting all this. Hearing about others' situations and the resolutions is one of the invaluable things about this site.

Your pushrod is broken. You can replace it by removing the swing arm.

the pushrod on my r80 is broken where the felt resides, it's been that way for at least 30k. the first time I pulled the trans to lube the splines I didn't know any better and thought it was made that way. I finally learned that it wasn't made like that when I was researching getting bearing replacements.
I ended up just smoothing the races with a file and some sandpaper and putting it back in service. doesn't make any odd noises and feels normal so who knows, probably come back and bite me some day.

So it should be one solid piece from the outside where the arm pushes on it all the way to the tip? It doesnt appear to be broken?? I will probablby ride it for a bit...

I dont think its broken? How would you get the bearing on there?? There is the pushrod and then there is the plunger piece that is at the rear with the rubber seal that articulates with the actuall arm. Right?. I looked at a pic on antons site and he shows the piece that I am describing. Its not part of the pushrod.

http://www.largiader.com/articles/throwout/pushrods.jpg

hope this is OK to post a link. Not smart enough to post the pic directly. Thanks Anton!

Mine looks just exactly like the one at the bottom or maybe second from the bottom.

I'm sorry. I was looking at Rob Farmer's pictures and thought they were yours.

"Never mind!" Emily Litella

Hey, no worries. I appreciate all the help.