Did my clutch slip?

[Tom]

On the way to work today, I had a bit of an issue that has me running through possible culprits in my head:

The bike was at about 5 bars on the temp gauge.
Going down a hill in 4th.
RPM was about 9K.
I had the gas pinned, and the bike was still accelerating, then randomly it bounced off the rev limiter twice then went right back to 9K rpm, and did it again once I was up to about 9,500 RPM (bounced off the rev limiter twice and went back to 9.5K). It all happened very quickly, but the shift light was flashing each of the four times it bounced off the rev limiter.

I'll try again on the way home to see if I can re-create this, but with the engine fully warmed up.

Aside from a random clutch slip due to the bike only being at 5 bars on the temp gauge, any other ideas what it could have been? Any advice on what to look for, in case this is the first sign of a catastrophic failure of some component?

 

[Tom]

Ok, definitely happened again on the way home. 4th gear at about 8K bounced off the rev limiter and threw me forward with the sudden loss of power. My chain looks like it's really loose, I can touch the bottom of the swingarm with the chain with zero resistance.

Could it be possible it's the chain slipping?

 

[Andy]

Chain will only slip if it’s knackered or the sprockets are severely worn.

If the bike is slipping then clutch adjustment/wear is likely but also the clutch retaining nut may have come loose.


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[Tom]

So I went and tightened (over tightened) my chain yesterday, and so far I havent experienced any further instances of this happening. I need to loosen the chain back up a little bit, but I;m not really worried about its life. If it was skipping teeth enough to bounce off redline, I can only imagine its already toast. Oddly enough, the sprockets look fine. I compared my rear to the OEM one I took off the bike back when it only had 500 miles, and the differences were minimal.

I still think it's a little early to say im out of the woods of a clutch replacement, but fingers crossed.

 

[Tom]

70 mile ride today, no further slips. I'm thinking I can chalk the high RPM clutch slips as actually being the chain somehow skipping teeth from being way too loose. That being said, I'm going to go ahead with getting a new chain. I'm piecing together a marchesini setup, so I wanted to get a bunch of new components anyways. I'm eyeing this chain, anyone have any advice on something that may be better?

https://www.revzilla.com/motorcycle/ek-chain-520-z3d-chain

Also, would I be good with the 120 link? I'm currently running a 41 tooth rear, but the setup this will go on is a 43T rear.