Hi Brad from Brad’s AC Performance and Fink’s Performance Suspension.
Contact info 231-649-2534
In this video I’m going to explain why I developed the bronze bushing for the Skidoo P drive clutch I’ve noticed over the years owning several 850 skidoos with the p-drive clutch the clutch is run extremely hot.
My latest Skidoo 23 850 with Smart Shox, I bought the upgrade kit with the team secondary and it’s a kit that comes you’re supposed to just you know install it and everything’s set. Got the right Helix, got the right spring. I put that in and noticed that I still had belt heat so it’s definitely not the secondary, but the guy’s selling me the clutch kit said it would solve the heat problems. It did not.
A lot thought that the clutch is not being able to slide on the secondary shaft is causing some of the heat in the deflection. I don’t think that’s the case.
When looking at the clutching that they set for the Ski-Doo and the team the Helix and spring are nearly identical to what was in the Polaris so that’s pointing me to the direction of the clutch being the problem.
This is a Polaris clutch. One of the things I noticed about this clutch is how tight it is. I can barely rock it.
In the Skidoo clutch, now this has my bushings in it, see how nice it is? The same amount of rock now that it’s been updated with these bushings, but prior to that with the fiber bushings that they use at about 9 thousandths of play and one of the things that we noticed was when checking the inside with an inside check is that the bushing felt squishy, I could get 9 thousandths of play. But I could also let the spring push tighter and I could get up to 11 thousandths which tells me these are softer. There’s something going on that we don’t like.
And what drew me to all of this on the bushings was I rebuilt a clutch for a friend of mine and his clutch had about 12 thousands of play in it and when we rebuilt it put it back together it still had a lot of play and the clutches did run a little bit cooler but not significantly. So that’s the purpose of what we’re doing here and that’s the product that I’m selling.
I’m going to give you some tips on how to measure and check things and how to adjust sizing and how to install so let’s get started.
The kit comes with
two bronze bushings
an installer
clip removal tool
I’ll show you how this works in a second.
You want to get your old get your clutch off the sled of course and completely torn down and one of the things that we noticed was that this part of the clutch is tapered just like the clutch is tapered to the engine and there’s some Distortion in the top of the shaft so we notice once we got the bronze bushings in that they were hanging up right here at the top of the post and I think that’s from the torque and the tightening of this piece and it being a tapered seat.
So what we did was we spun up this part of the clutch in a lathe you can see I’ve cleaned the end off there with Emery cloth to take that little lip off of there.
This is important that you do this because it will scratch or knurl the bushings when you’re putting it together.
I ruined a couple sets of bushings figuring this out so once you get that taken care of you’re going to want to put bushings in and you’re going to find that there’s a snap ring in here that holds the old bushings in and there’s a snap ring on this side as well.
You’re going to want to put your penetrating oil in there and let it set overnight if your clutch is older so that it gets in there.
Then after you’re ready to now that you’re ready to take the snap ring out instead of taking it all and trying to dig that out and scratch everything up you take this shock shim come right in alongside it here go in I can reach down there with my thumbnail.
You’ll never see anybody do that any easier than I just did that that’ll. Then allow you to take and get the old bushing out now to get the old bushing out you want to drift similar to this and you want to face it on your belt sander so that it’s nice and sharp edged and when you look inside the shaft here and if you look inside there you can see the edges of the bushing and you can get this on those edges and you can tap the bushing out be careful not to Mark the clutch up.
Once you get the bushings out my bushings my new bushings come with one Edge has got a bevel to it find that bevel that goes in the clutch take the installer and then get it started and very carefully there’s two ways you can do this you can do this in a press or you can do it with a hammer and if you’re going to do it with a hammer use this style that has a rubber mallet and cap in the center and guide it watch it you if you’ve done the staple work before you know what I’m talking about. A little bit of lubrication on here some JB 80 or WD-40 will help but go in once it’s in put the snap ring back in do the other side all right now let’s check measurements.
So you need to check your post we’re looking for about two and a half thousands you need to check your post mine is one inch 572 thousandths. And then these you can buy at Harbor Freight they’re about 30 bucks. Get an inside measurement mine’s already there I can feel it there’s just a little bit of drag. And you check this and I’m getting about one 574 and a half so about two and a half thousands.
The other thing that is the key indicator is you want to put this on it should go on that nice and easy and you should just catch if you tilt it catching hard that means you’ve got too much clearance in your bushings and this just barely rocks you can barely feel it move.
Now you’re saying to yourself what if it’s too tight how do I adjust it? With a brand new brake hone from the Lyle rack at any auto parts store you can take this and you can install it on a drill and put it inside the bushings here and spin it up and use some light penetrating oil and check it you want to spin it at 2000 RPMs for 30 to 90 seconds and then check it and just be very careful you can go they can take off and go really fast on you so little bits at a time and get the exact number you’re looking for.
So I think that covers everything you need to know make sure you have the proper tools from Skidoo to take your clutches apart. Double check everything. Loctite everything and the parts can be purchased at snowmobileshocks.com which will take you a link to Brad’s Auto Glass which is my retail site where I can accept credit cards.
Parts are currently in pre-production will be available October 30th of 2023.
If you have any questions feel free to contact me at the phone number listed on the website snowmobileshocks.com