Clutch play.....

 8:29 am - Friday - December 1st - GNHS - 53° F, humidity 77%, wind 2 mph out of the west....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 66° F.  On this date in 2020 TLE and I were having lunch at Los Jilberto's Taqueria in Borrego Springs, CA....↴

TLE and I opened the COA office around 9 am, even though there were no advance bookings.  There is always the off chance of a walkup customer, but with the park virtually empty I did not expect any.  While TLE busied herself with office stuff, I decided to remove the clutch housing cover from RZR 7 to see how dusty it was in there after some 600 miles of use in our dusty environment.  On the old RZRs we had last year I could have the cover off in less than 10 minutes, but there have been some changes since 2022, and it took me a good hour to remove it, only to find very little dust, which is a big improvement over the 2022 version.  We had to blow out the clutch housing at least once every 10 days.  Now that I know how it comes apart, and goes back together I think I can do it in about 15-20 minutes.

So, why did it take so much longer?  First a couple of pictures of the updated clutch housing assembly....

....first of all, and this was the part that took me way longer to remove than on the old version. This is the air intake line.  On the 2022 version this was a soft, flexible hose that could easily be removed after loosening the hose clamps, but on the new 2023 version this air intake is made of a rigid PVC type material, and even with both hose clamps loosened it is hard to remove, due to its stiffness, from the clutch housing.  Ultimately I needed a small pry bar to slip it off the clutch housing.  Once that was done, the removal of the 13 bolts which affix  the clutch housing to the engine was easy....

Rear portion of the clutch housing....the forward part is obscured by the air intake. There are 13 bolts which must be loosened using an 8 mm socket.

.....I'm glad I had the time to figure this out in the controlled environment of the office parking area.  Now I know I will need additional tools to do this job in the 'field'.  I wish I had taken a picture of the new drive belts on the 2023 version.  The old belts broke quite easily, as you may remember.  The new version is about twice as beefy as the old, and I believe it is the one they use on the 4 cylinder turbo version of this motor.  Another change they made is that the 13 bolts, once loosened, remain attached to the housing, so there will be no worry about losing one, or two in the sand out in the field....a very good change!

Once I had the clutch housing and air intake reinstalled I began the task of refueling, and washing those RZRs which were just parked at the end of Sunday.  It was took dark, and we were tired, so I decided to wash them later in the week.  In all I fueled and washed 4 RZRs, and by the time I finished with the 4th one it was 1 pm, and since there had been no walkup business TLE and I called it a day and closed the office.

After having some lunch I walked down to the hot pools for my 4th soak in as many days.  After kneeling on the ground (I do use a foam pad for my knees) and wrestling the air intake, and clutch housing from their cubbyholes I needed a good soak....

....did I mention it was very cloudy Thursday?  After soaking for close to an hour I headed home, changed, and then retrieved the white paint, and paint brush I used last year to paint the trim on the front of the COA office, and began painting the new window trim I had installed Wednesday....

.....looks great, doesn't it?  After viewing the application of the first coat of paint TLE gave it her seal of approval.  By the time I cleaned the paint brush, and put everything away it was 4 pm, and time for a sunset fire.....

....as the sun continued its daily skid toward the San Jacinto Mountains to the west the sky began to light up in every direction of the compass....

Southwest

West

Northwest

Southeast

....the last picture (above) is my favorite from Thursday's sunset....looking southeast.  We sat by the fire until after 5:30 pm before heading inside for dinner.  As is our habit on Thursday nights we watch recorded episodes of 'Survivor' and 'Amazing Race' from Wednesday night.

Thanks for stopping by!