I have a 25 year old wrist injury that makes it tough for me to deal with a clutch after a hard days riding. I found myself stalling out on tough single track when I could/did not get the clutch in on time. A search found that no one listed an auto clutch for the XT or TTR 225/230. But, EFM's website said they could make one for anything. A call to Gary at EFM revealed that he modifies your stock clutch. However, the problem with putting one on the XT would be clearance. EFM's centrifugal pressure plate adds about 3/8" height to the stock clutch. On dirt bikes with a separate clutch cover EFM provides a spacer. Obviously we can’t do that on the XT. About the same time I found this out, Peterman over on advrider.com posted that he could do anything with metal. A quick message to him and he said he could extend the cover the required 3/8”. I sent the cover to him and the clutch to EFM for the mod.

The cover.

Here is the cover ready to be modified.


Here is the cut.



Here is the cover with the 3/8 spacer welded in.


I still had to do a little metal removal from the inside diameter after test fitting the cover. The red marks are where I marked the contact points so I could see them easier.


The Clutch

The modified clutch installed

The modified clutch hub

The presssure plate taken apart


The holes tapped into the fingers on the clutch basket have very little metal around them. One busted out the first time I screwed in one of the bolts.

I decided to try it with only 21 of the 22 bolts and fix the stripped one later. After all I did ride the XT with one of the three bolts broken for a day with no problem


EFM’s directions are not the clearest in the world. Clearance specs are given between the pressure and disks with the warning not to proceed if you don’t have the clearance. The problem is he doesn’t say how to get the proper clearance. To adjust the clearance I installed the .01” spacers (3 were included with the clutch) between the basket and the hub. I used two of them.

All buttoned up and ready to ride.





Test ride around the yard was good. The real test will come tomorrow and Sunday