1998 VFR clutch friction plate replacement problem

Hi guys, hopefully someone will have a suggestion for me.

My VFR has about 25k miles and I could sense what I thought was the clutch slipping a bit. So I decided to replace the clutch friction disks with EBC disks that I soaked in oil overnight . New Barnett springs as well. Where I did the work I didn't have access to a caliper to check the thickness of the plates or the whole new vs. old stack thickness. So I simply assembled things and closed up the cover with a new gasket. The clutch fluid was very dark so I bled the clutch as well.

Now it seems that the clutch won't fully disengage when the lever is depressed. I can't get the bike in neutral either. The lever feels fine, but I guess the clutch stack won't come apart enough. I did keep the old friction plates, so I can measure their thickness and compare if and when the cover comes off again.

Any suggestions? Like I said the lever feels ok. Looking at the old friction plates the cork material looks thinner than on the new ones. If I truly have the correct friction plates for this bike what could be the problem. Could I have misaligned those large metal washers that go under the first friction disk? It looks like I'll be opening things up but I just wanted to see if anyone has some pointers.

Thanks

 

Make sure you've bled all the air out of the system.
The smallest of bubbles will stop clutch from fully disengaging.
Also make sure you got the order and number right on the plates and disks.

 

Hi guys. Looks like the problem was air in the system. I bled the line again a day later after bubbles had a chance to move upwards and that did the trick. That and adjusting the lever to allow for more travel.

By the way, for anyone contemplating this job here's one tip I discovered. The Honda service manual directs you to remove the entire air cleaner housing in order to disconnect the pulse generator leads coming from the clutch cover. This isn't actually necessary as you can fairly easily get to this connector from the outside. Just follow the leads upwards to a rubber shroud protecting several connectors and you'll see the red connector.