Sticking clutch?

[CookMySock]

Four hours?? bugger that.. wheres my angle grinder!

Steve

[Malcolm]

thought I'd update this now that I've fixed it.

So I ended up pulling the clutch apart again to inspect it, didn't see anything out of place, but I reassembled it and had a closer look at the operation of the lever. There was very little travel left in the arm where the cable attaches once the slack had been taken up. I think this is largely because the part of the clutch shaft that pulls the rod to disengage the clutch is reasonably worn.

So, to take up some of the freeplay in the system, I made up a paper gasket to go between the clutch cover and the engine casing, spacing it out slightly and allowing the clutch to disengage further (and no there is no preload on the clutch arm when engaged). I'm not sure if they're supposed to have a paper gasket originally or not, but it previously just had silicon RTV. Works fine now