Etching your clutch sheaves?

[mountainhorse]

If you blow out your primary clutches with compressed air after every ride or so, and clean the clutches and belt without getting carried away every few rides... that would be sufficient.

As far as the belt, I like to give it a physical scrub and wash to get embedded particles of rubber/kevlar/aluminum out of the pores of the rubber. I do this after every 3 rides and my belts last and clutches just flat out work.

I like how Mike (Aksnowrider) is thorough with everything. I'm not a fan of taking off the clutch so often... but then again, Mike is not your "average wrench" when it comes to stuff on his sled.

I remove the clutch once or twice a season for a very good washing and also to gain access to clean the under-hood area really well.











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[mountainhorse]

Also, as far as the etching goes..

The clutches and belts have to be clean for them to work correctly and have good friction on the sidewalls of the belt

BUT....

That belt still needs to "slip" slightly for movement up and down both clutch faces... the TSS-04 secondary clutch sheaves still twist in relation to each other and the primary pushes the belt up and down the angled faces of the primary... It does not climb the face like a chain and sprocket on a bicycle.. but rather evenly pushes up and down as the primary squeezes and releases the belt in those directions against the pull of the secondary.

Smoooth surfaces can actually have just as much or more friction as an etched surface.

The key here is more to keep your stuff clean and smoothly functioning than to modify the surface of the clutch faces.

I've yet to see a clean well maintained clutch give up performance unless the clutching (springs/weights/helix) are inappropriate for the application.