Hilliard flame with needle bearing - how often to pull off and clean?

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We have a Hilliard flame clutch with the needle bearing. It's working great. How often should this thing be pulled off and cleaned (we are running pavement - but there is a lot of dust). I have heard every 2 hours - I don't want to over or under maintain this.
 
We do it after every night of racing and we are on dirt. Never had a failure with a bearing, race, or drum and we run two karts one flame one fury both with bulley conversions. I flush bearings with brake cleaner and lightly sand drum and shoes. Give them a spray as well and lube bearing with a very small amount of light weight lube. That part I’ll leave to you because there’s big difference of opinion on what people lube with. Reinstall!
 
After every race day on dirt and asphalt, our flames get removed, sanded and dropped into the ultra sonic cleaner filled with wd40. Remove, blow dry, lube bearing and install.
 
Ok - so I guess we are due for a cleaning and bearing lube. When I take the clutch off I put a wrench on the clutch bolt and then tap that with a large adjustable wrench to loosen it. Is it possible to tighten the clutch bolt back up singlehandedly without a strap wrench (I have the strap wrench but I'm not sure much stuff I have to take off the engine to get to where I could use the wrench). Right now I have a helper hold the pull start when I torque the clutch on.
 
Get an electric impact gun. I don't use a strap or hold the pull start. Just impact it on and off. I've been using a 18v Ryobi for years.
 
^^^x2
Changed all our lug nuts and sprocket hub nuts to 1/4-28x5/16 so the 1/2” socket can just stay on the gun.
 
When folks pull the clutch do you also pull the seat out to get access? Or do you pull the engine off the kart?

I got the clutch off and on again but did not have enough clearance on the kart for the torque wrench like they show in the Briggs video so I wrapped the pull start around something solid and just used a 1/2" wrench. Just curious how others do the clutch maintenance to get room for an impact gun or a torque wrench. The guy in the Hilliard video just used a wrench that he hit with another wrench to loosen and tighten the clutch.
 
That’s what I do. Clones for us but I place 1/2 socket or 12 point 1/2 wrench on bolt and give it a couple whacks with whatever slightly weighted tool I have in my pocket lol! Never cane off. Just keep your lock washer in good shape.
 
FatOldKartDad said:
When folks pull the clutch do you also pull the seat out to get access? Or do you pull the engine off the kart?

I got the clutch off and on again but did not have enough clearance on the kart for the torque wrench like they show in the Briggs video so I wrapped the pull start around something solid and just used a 1/2" wrench. Just curious how others do the clutch maintenance to get room for an impact gun or a torque wrench. The guy in the Hilliard video just used a wrench that he hit with another wrench to loosen and tighten the clutch.
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You already have the clamp bolts loose. Remove them and lean the engine to the right to get access to the clutch retaining bolt.

Or remove the fuel, throttle and tach cables and set off onto a bench.

Good luck.
 
If you can find carb cleaner it will be much better. Brake cleaner removes oil so it will remove the oils from the metals and you don't want that. Or as suggested use wd40.
 
I used WD40 and pulled the seat (and weights) off to make room for the torque wrench. I am using an Odenthal mount which I like for running, but I can see how the PMI style mounts could be helpful since you can slide them sideways to get more room to pull the clutch off. For folks who pull the engine do you have a bench mount to hold it in place when tightening up the clutch or some clever way of keeping the engine from moving around on the bench? In retrospect pulling the engine would have been easier - especially if the carb is getting removed to check float level etc.
 
Each to there own . I like the impact wrench , pull the butterflies lean engine over , zip the bolt loose. Same to tighten.
Wrench and small hammer or similar tool whack it once or twice.
Seen hole drilled in seat for access, problayy need to be a Jr driver to have enough room to slide clutch off though.
 
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Back when we were running multiple syrup classes, I drilled a 3/4” hole in the seat, to get my socket through with my 1/4” impact. Was way faster than pulling the butterflies every time. It’s tough when you have 2 drivers and no crew lol.
 
You didn't say what kind of engine but the clone and the 206 both have places in the cowling where you can use an allen wrench to lock into a hole in the back of the flywheel for loosening and tightening the clutch bolt. On asphalt I would just blow it out with compressed air and take it off every other race day.
 
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