Hi sorry iv been buisy and not able to jump on the computer, Dont use diesle it will cause problems with the clutch material and posibly the engine seals by hardening them but it is verry good at cleaning but not in this situatione. I think parafine would be ok but not 100 % sure , but as stated atf is good and try not to use engine oil use the corect transmision gear oil bike shops suply other wise you can get a film build up on the clutch plates. If you are able to use parfine dont drain the oil and replace it with the parafine do a 50/50 mixture of oil and parafin and run your bike for 10 minutes in idle and not riding it and drain the oil out. and then use cheap oil to flush out as stated 2 to 3 times . but just double chaeck this is ok to do as i dont want to cause you any more problems.

thanx for the info, I have some cheap 2 stroke gear oil which I am putting through the bike, I have changed it 3 times already and each time it is getting cleaner, so i think i am on the right track - the material coming out is not magnetic, when it comes out clean I will put the good oil in it.

From the look of your oil, I would bet the bike has aluminum plates in the clutch instead of steel.  With aluminum plates, every time you slip the clutch it take a little more material off the plates and they groove real fast wearing out the fiber plates.  If you pull the right clutch cover off, the basket is right there.  Pull the pressure plate off and the 2nd plate will be the sign of what your looking for.  If its aluminum, then all the rest of the plates will be also.

Edited by Padgett, 15 February 2012 - 08:38 PM.

finally split my engine, it appears that part of the clutch exploded?? strangely enough it was still working.......

whats broken, lets see some pics.

cwf340, on 13 July 2012 - 09:00 AM, said:

The actual aluminium clutch plates were broken, not all of them, broken into chunks, some were broken in half.... the gear box was full of chewed up clutch, some larger chunks got caught up around the selector forks...
I will post some photos soon, its amazing that the clutch still worked?! I drained the oil about 4 times in quick succession and the aluminium flakes just kept coming, and my gears were getting harder and harder to change.

I would suggest a Tusk brand clutch kit. It comes with steel plates.

this is what we found, there was a lot of fine aluminium and smaller chunks in the gearbox.

It's not so rare for clutch plates to break. Fortunately for you the debris didn't get caught in one main bearing destroying the transmission. It's a good thing you have it appart to clean it thoroughly. Steel plates are alot tougher but beware sometimes after market clutch plates are just a little bit thicker and I've seen some brand new clutch sets refuse to disengage because the whole stack was too thick.

I heard steel plates wear the basket out a lot quicker? for the amount of riding I do nowdays surely a new set of standard aluminium plates should see me through? or are clutch explosions an issue with the 02 RM's?
whats the concensus on steel vs aluminium? how often should aluminium clutch plates be replaced/checked? its strange that even though my clutch plates were shattered the clutch still worked??
there were handfulls of finely ground up clutch plate in the gearbox so all the bearings are being replaced while she's split apart.