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Long story short: I managed to break the spider spring inside my slipper clutch. Apparently these things happen. Below are two pictures of this work of art:

broken spider spring 1 broken spider spring 2

Now I have some 300km separating me from home. Obviously precaution dictates that I leave the motorbike where it is and find a way to transport it home without actually driving it. This is a Ducati performance dry clutch mounted on a 2008 Hypermotard.

Nevertheless this incident got me wondering. Will driving with a broken / without the spring damage my clutch?

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  • Is that a dry clutch? What's the make/model/year of your bike?
    – DucatiKiller
    May 1, 2016 at 4:40
  • @DucatiKiller This is a Ducati performance dry clutch mounted on a 2008 Hypermotard. I was waiting for you to show up, Ducati man. :)
    – JoErNanO
    May 1, 2016 at 8:16
  • Your good to drive it home. The spring allegedly provides some sound dampening takes out some of the higher frequency rattle out of the beautiful dry clutch sound. It looks like when the spring failed it put some nicks and blemishes in the 'slots' that retain it. It might be a little louder. I've seen this failure before (at a track day of all places) and they removed it completely and continued with the track day. I will say, I wouldn't do that....but putting a few miles on it will be fine. I'll write you answer when I have more time. I have my weekend 'honey do's'.........
    – DucatiKiller
    May 1, 2016 at 21:25

1 Answer 1

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You can ride it up but not hard at all

That spider spring works in conjunction with the ramps in the rear to all the clutch to slip under engine breaking that exceeds the redline of the bike. So you won't want to be downshifting from 5th redline to 2nd gear until you get this fixed.

You are very lucky the spring losing it's two arms didn't do more damage. Inspect the back of your pressure plate.

The nicks and burs inside the inner basket don't look too bad but the photo may not show all the damage. Your primary concern is the threaded pins emerging from the back of the inner basket from the out basket to secure your pressure plate and springs to.

The spider spring is a 'secondary' spring to the 6 primary springs so you can get slip in both directions, on and off power, potentially. Hence the recommendation to just ride it easy home.

No OEM

From what I can recall you can't get replacement components from Ducati for this basket but you may be able to get a new spider spring from STM.

Replacement

You can get an adjustable STM replacement slipper clutch but they (as you probably know) are expensive. If you've found yourself wanting the clutch the start bleeding off energy earlier or later than your current clutch then you will be much happier with an adjustable slipper than this one. You can get the ball bearing type with various degrees of ramp

AFIK it's the only non-adjustable slipper that STM has ever made.

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  • FYI the part number is 799.1.066.1B, and it can be purchased as a spare.
    – JoErNanO
    May 4, 2016 at 12:18

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