Our opening shot has our 2006 Road King up on a bike lift with its primary cover, shifter levers, front and rear left floorboards removed. A H-D oil drip pan is under the bike to catch the old primary fluid.
Captions by Chris Maida / Photos by Chelsea Maida
Breeze through traffic without pulling the clutch lever
I got to spend some riding time with aim ad sales representative Ken McCurdy at the 75th Sturgis rally this past summer. If you were there, or even read about it, you have an idea of the crowding that almost a million motorcyclists descending on a small town with three roads can cause.
So there we were, sitting in traffic on I-90, waiting to exit for Black Hills H-D along with thousands of others, with my clutch hand starting to get a little sore. So, I would shift my Limited test bike
The Rekluse clutch friction disks and EXP disk must soak in new primary oil for at least five minutes before installation.
into neutral for a few seconds, stretch my hand, kick back into gear, and move forward another few feet. That’s when I noticed Ken coolly and comfortably moving forward without even kicking the shifter or using the clutch. He would just give a little throttle as we duckwalked our bikes forward. His clutch must be broken, I thought, so I asked him about it. Turns out, he had recently equipped his 2006 Road King with a Rekluse EXP 3.0 clutch kit (#RMS-6203C/$799), which prevents engine stalling by using centrifugally driven technology.
The Rekluse EXP clutch system allows the user to take off and stop in gear without having to use the clutch lever, allowing for precision maneuvers at extremely low speeds while the rest of us are balancing clutch, throttle, and rear brake to get around a tight parking lot. The Rekluse kit comes with a whole new TorqDrive clutch pack that has a higher torque capacity than stock and can transfer power faster.
Besides the obvious difference, using a Rekluse EXP clutch is no different than regular clutching. You still pull the lever when changing gears, and shifting feels no different. The clutch can still be used at any time, too, so some situations where a clutch is needed (like rolling the bike backwards) can be done. As an added benefit, since the greatest wear on a clutch occurs in stop-and-go traffic, your clutch will run cooler and last longer. The cool part is that using the clutch is totally optional. You can if you want, don’t have to if you don’t.
As for Ken, he loves it!
Installing a Rekluse auto-clutch involves nothing more than changing out the clutch pack, and no modifications are required. Not that you’d want to, but you could swap your stock clutch back in at any time, like if you decide to sell your bike! The accompanying photos and captions show Editor Chris installing the Rekluse EXP clutch in just a few hours on Ken’s 2006 Road King. Next year, you can be the envy of just about everyone, except Ken, at Sturgis! AIM
Pull all the stock and steel friction plates from the clutch housing. These will not be reused.
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SOURCES
866/735-5873
Rekluse.com
Like what you see? The full article with all steps, tips & tricks, and tools needed, is in American Iron Magazine issue # 334! To order a back issue of this or any other issue of American Iron Magazine, visit Greaserag.com. Follow American Iron Magazine on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram! To subscribe to the PRINT edition, click here. To receive DIGITAL DELIVERY, click here.
Install the Rekluse spring ring with its tabs engage with the notches on the spring and its holes aligning with the holes in the clutch hub. We used the light lever spring ring since we have a stock motor.