Proper clutch adjustment?

When the clutch arm on my Dax China doll is properly adjusted, should there be no tension on the cable/wire when the clutch is "off", ie the motor is driving the bike?
If I don't have some tension in the wire, when I have the Buttton locked for the clutch handle,ie pedaling the bike with no engine power, there is a lot of engine drag.
What is the proper adjustment of clutch cable tension?

Hm, mine is 'just' off any tension when in-gear, and doesn't drag when handle-locked with wheel off the ground. It could be different for other people, and this is a newer engine still.

Been playing with your flower nut?

My clutch is like that too. I cant use the handle lock to hold it in place cuz there is engine drag. Its still rubbing with it locked. I just use a zip tie when i want to pedal for any length of time.

I have the same issue...My clutch works great, but in the lock position, there is just enough drag to keep the engine from idling, and to make it hard to pedal. Regardless of how I adjust the clutch, I just can't get the sweet spot.

I think I am going to take James' zip tie idea one further...install a catch on the bar end itself. If I get time this weekend to work out the details, I will post a picture or two,

Tim

That's just where mine happened to be after proper adjustment. You can tighten your cable to the point that it won't happily spin the wheel when its off the ground.

Where the cable goes through the adjuster bolted to your case, it will thread out to give you alot of adjustment. With the kickstand down, and the motor idling, lean the bike so the tire's off the ground, and crank the adjuster until the wheel stops spinning like crazy. And check to make sure it bites good with a ride after that. If it doesn't bite good, you'll have to let off tension until you're happy.

The adjuster on your handle will give you 'on-the-fly' adjustment for when you're out-and-about, but I don't recommend turning that out too far because the little aluminum adjuster will spread over time, but it is good for some. I leave mine out a couple turns for when my pucks wear enough to start to slip, so I have that turn to get me home happily.

Remember, there's only 3-4mm of play in the whole clutch assembly. A little adjustment can do a lot.

That was the short term fix guys. Now down to the Brass Tacks. Over time, undue tension on your cable will cause stretching. That means that over time you'll be constantly fighting that stretch and keeping the clutch in the 'sweet spot' Hopefully you've heard that you should rest your bike 'in-gear'(handle released) so the cable doesn't stretch, right? ...Right?

Now you need to read this a couple times:
http://motorbicycling.com/f30/clutch-cable-clutch-adjusting-procedures-motorized-22729.html


Now you've got a better idea of what's going on, and there's no excuse to zip-tie your handle so you can pedal!

I read the sticky before I posted and something doesn't make sense. The instructions say to swing the arm fully towards the carb and tighten the screw in the brass holder.
This will give me full disengagement of the engine,BUT a little later in the directions it says when the engine is fully driving the wheels there should be a little slack in the cable.
These directions are antithetical in my china doll, at least. It seems you are "riding the clutch" ie pushing it in a little as you ride if there is any appreciable tension in the cable.
Am I right in my understanding?

That means to take the slop out of the arm. I think you're activating it a bit(pushing on the clutch spring action). Push the arm towards the carb, With Your Hands, not with a tool, then tighten the brass nib.

"When the engine is fully driving the wheels" yes there should be a little slack(just a little). Like I said the whole action only takes 3-4mm. There's a .gif around somewhere of the action, I'll go find it.

Okay, the whole action is probably less than 3-4, probably 2-3mm

What you want to watch is the T just to the right of the pushrod bearing:



With the flower nut off and cable released, the clutch action will only go so far. So that's where you need to set your clutch to.

The scariest thing about adjusting the flower nut is worrying about stripping the little lock screw. Besides who actually assembled the poor thing...

So I went thru and adjusted my clutch again today, and I found the sweet spot. I can now idle, and pedal with the clutch locked out, as well as get good engagement with no slipping. It takes some persistence, but it can be done.

Man, I love tinkering on stuff!

Lets go ride!

I'm using the combo brake/clutch lever and was having fits with clutch adjustment.
The combo is really made for a three speed bicycle, and adapted.

After a lot of head-scratching, I found that "second gear" was engaged, meaning there was not enough slack remaining to achieve the next lock. Surprisingly there was not enough tension on the cable to allow the shifter to go back to first.

Solution: Loosen clutch cable and take spring tension "the one you put over the bare clutch cable" off, the you can with just a little manual tension on the cable, allow it to ratchet back to first.
Then go back and make sure you adjust the cable and preload while the shifter is in first.

I also discovered that if you allow the clutch cable to go back into the shifter, the little ferrule on the end of the cable can slip out of it's notch, which completely locks up the shifter. For this one, loosen the cable, take the top off the shifter, and look for the cable end's location and where it should really be. No more disasembly is needed, just use a little screwdriver to move the cable end into it's proper home.

Hope this helps.