A few months back i scraped my primary cover over a tree root and punctured it. I noticed within 10 feet that it happened and pulled over and got the bike towed home. had my mechanic replace the cover and do a service on the bike. since then i've ridden the bike maybe 3 times, the last one being the trip to my parents house to store it for the winter. Well it's been nice out so I decided to ride it once more. I got maybe a mile up the street before i noticed some clutch noise. I was stopped at a light in neutral and noticed when I engaged the clutch (pulled the lever in) I heard a noise like a scraping or grinding almost. when I disengaged the clutch the noise would stop. needless to say I brought the bike straight home. does anyone know what could be causing this? is it possible the clown that gave me a new primary cover forgot to put oil in there and i only now noticed it after 3 rides? I didn't have any tools with me so I havent taken the derby cover off yet to look around. the bike is an '08 and has about 25,000 miles on it. any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

How long was the bike sitting for, and did you see any primary fluid leaking? If you dont have any tools just do visual and touch check. Look and feel around the primary drain plug to see if fluid leaking there as well as around the primary. Then when you get to where you got tools, check through the derby cover and go from there.

 

i probably rode the bike 3 times in 2 months, it didn't sit for more than a few weeks at a time. never noticed anything leaking. i did however notice a little bit of weeping around where the primary cover gasket would be. almost like a slight misting a little bit. but that was on the top of the primary cover, and only noticed it once it was garaged

 

Noise in the front of the primary or rear?

 

It's possible that what your hearing is Not related to your primary cover damage. What you described sounds to me like a failing inner primary bearing which is common on your year model.

 

Might be the clutch hub bearing. It's only turning when the clutch is disengaged (lever pulled in).

 

Yeah got to be something related to the "root" puncturing the derby cover. Probably damaged something when that happened.