Yamaha TTR 125 and Rekluse automatic clutch

Decided to get an automatic clutch for the dirt bike that the wife and I share.  This was mainly to help my wife since she is having some hand strength issues which make use of the manual clutch difficult.

I had debated doing this for a few years but had not wanted to spend the money.  The clutch is not cheap by any means and when you compare it to the cost of a TTR 125 it is hard to justify without some really good reasons.

After I finally decided to buy it, I found out that prices had increased quite a bit.  After some internet searching, I ran across a site that must have had some older stock closer to the price I had remembered.

I received the kit fairly quickly and a quick view of the kit left me the impression that it is designed and machined quite well.  The instructions are somewhat minimal but were clear enough most of the time to get by.  A few extra details would be nice.

I finally started the install.  The first challenge was getting the rear brake bracket off.  The bolt uses a hex key and it was on unbelievingly tight.  A few applications WD-40 and some other similar items combined with persistence finally paid off.  I did end up using a shorter hex key since the one I started with felt like it was ready to snap.

The next challenge was removing the boss nut.  With the bike in gear, I was unable to find a good way to prevent rear wheel movement (without damaging spokes).  I ended up with rope around the circumference of the wheel and tied to some wood placed against the swingarm.  This helped but I ended up using an impact wrench to get the nut off (in under a second).  Later, I reversed the setup on the wheel to install the nut with a torque wrench - this was much more challenging.

The kit has you do a few things like grind down 4 bolt posts.  Instead of using a file for the entire thing I used a dremel and cutoff bit to speed the process along.  A file was needed to complete it though.  The kit provided a piece to use as a guide for the process.  This made it very easy to do without much fear of error.

The assembly of the main kit pieces was simple - just be careful with all the steel/carbide balls - would not be fun to chase around the garage or extract from the engine case.  The instructions have you assemble the main kit with the balls somewhere NOT near the motorcycle which seems like great advice.

Got it all together and was able to go around the yard with no issues.  Even had the wife go around the yard a few times.  All was fine until I stopped and pulled in the manual clutch.  It was like it wasn't connected at first.  After that, when the bike was in gear it acted like the clutch was fully disengaged - no attempt at movement.  Started disassembly to see what went wrong and looked good until I got to the throw out.  The nut that the instructions had me move to the bottom of the thrust washer had loosened significantly.  I ended up using a wrench to tighten the top/bottom nuts against the washer.

TODO - will add some more comments on reassembly and testing/trying it out once I am done with it.

First fully successful test ride complete!  Works now!  It was definitely worth the price to see my wife tooling around the yard with a bigger than normal grin (under the helmet).  It made a huge difference for her since she didn't have to worry about stalling or starting off with a wheelie by mistake.

My only concern after my final round of assembly is that the shifter seems stiffer than I think it should.  This may mean I just need to adjust the clutch at the handlebars a bit.  Hoping that is the case and that I don't have to tear it apart again.  I saw a blog entry somewhere where the person indicated that they had better results with 4 threads (instead of 5) showing on the throw out. 

[2019/01/27] After appearing to be off the market for a while I've noticed that the auto-clutch is available for the Yamaha TTR-125 again - found at Revzilla web site.