I thought I may have had a drop or two when the bike's been sitting awhile, but while I've been working on the handlebars, I've had this:



It smells like tranny fluid.  Did I have a seal go out, or does this have anything to do with the fact I've got the clutch cable disconnected?

zaubertuba wrote:. . . does this have anything to do with the fact I've got the clutch cable disconnected?

That is likely. Read this .

If you're really lucky the boot has pulled off the back of the gearbox and can be reused, but my bet is on it having ripped where it sits up against the clutch arm. New boot time . If you ever need to disconnect the clutch cable, always tie the clutch arm to the frame. It just needs to be at the point where it engages with the clutch.

If the boot is torn you maybe able to repair it.
I tore about a 3/8" long slit in one and the replacement was going to be a while coming.
I happened to have some Aquaseal wet suit repair adhesive in the freezer. After cleaning the seal up good applying the sealer and letting it dry over night the repair looked pretty good.

Beening on the RS 4valve you pretty much need to drop the exhaust to replace the boot I have left the repaired boot on it until it leaks or I drop the exhaust for other reasons.

So several months and a few thousand K later it is still sealed up.

Hopefully yours has just slipped off and is not damaged.

I got so fed up of forgetting about the clutch boot every time I disengaged the cable, that I kept a long-standing promise to myself and made this bracket so's I no longer represented a threat to the world's supply of replacement clutch boots:


I do seriously think there's a design fault in there somewhere - with the owner, not the bike....

A small slip of flexible leather and some shoe goo or other sloopy sloppy glue works a charm over a torn clutch boot if you can't easily get one and/or don't have time to do it then and there.