Help with vee clutch needed please

[Deauman]

Afternoon all. I've been lurking on this forum for quite a while now but I'm afraid I'm not much of a one for posting much.
I was doing a bit of routine maintenance yesterday and what should have been straightforward has turned into a conundrum.
I was just cleaning out all the crap from around the engine sprocket and checking it's wear so I had removed the clutch cylinder and the sprocket cover. When I came to re-assemble the clutch cylinder didn't seem to want to go on squarely. I thought maybe the rubber boot had got misplaced so I took it apart again but not before I tightened the bolts up perhaps more than I should have. Now when I insert the pushrod it will only go in about half way then it meets solid resistance. The pushrod is not bent and nothing else has gone down that little hole so I'm at a loss what to do. The only thing I can think of is going in from the clutch side of the engine to try and see what's going on but before I embark on that amount of work I would be very interested to know if anyone has come across this before or has any ideas as how to proceed.
Many thanks in advance
Deauman

[TimV]

There's a spacer tube that goes on one of the clutch cylinder's mounting bolts- have you refitted that OK?

[Rixington43]

The pushrod slides part way into the rod inside the engine case, if you insert it slightly off square then it catches the outer lip on the other half and doesn't fully insert, a bit of a jiggle usually gets it to go in all the way.
With regards the slave cylinder, the piston tends to creep, I find it best to depress the slave piston fully with my fingers and then assemble it all as quickly as possible to get both bolts engaged square without load on the pushrod.
Best of luck.

[Deauman]

I had the spacer in place and I've done a lot of jiggling. Even with a smaller diameter bar than the pushrod there's no way through.

[kwackboy]

Sounds like the piston in the slave cylinder has come out slightly, when removed, the spring inside the cylinder pushes the piston out.

As Rixington says, push in the slave piston back in and reassemble quickly.

[Gert]

Some service manuals recommend that one ties the clutch lever to the handlebar, as a step in the slave cylinder maintenance. This was deemed to prevent any accidental operation of the clutch lever, that would result in the slave cylinder piston and spring from coming adrift.
However on refitting the slave cylinder into position, ensure to release the clutch lever pressure first and follow the advice as posted by Rixington in reply #2 above.