Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Morgan Three Wheeler & Super 3 Clutch

I have a new M3W (produced in 2018). When starting the car and releasing the clutch, I smell some kind of burnt something. This does not happen if I am starting on a flat surface, but otherwise (slightly uphill) I must increase RPM from 1100 to 1500-1800 to avoid the engine from stopping. Should I be worried? Any experience?

Definitely not normal, I would contact the selling dealer asap

Some questions:

How many miles do you have on the M3W?

When starting on the incline are you riding on the clutch to get the higher revs before moving off?

Are you using the handbrake to hold the trike with the clutch pedal fully depressed then at desired revs releasing handbrake and clutch at the same time?

Bruce

so does mine... hmmmmm

Does your clutch start engaging the minute the pedal is leaving the floor or does it engage out toward the end of its movement? Right off the floor is not good, end of movement is better.

Right off the floor could mean that the clutch is being slightly depressed allowing for slip.

I don't think it is slipping. It is when I am engaging it while goosing the throttle on an incline. But I have not thought about "where" it is engaging when I lift the pedal

Mine engages more from the middle of the travel up to let off.

The whole notion of trying to determine how much one 'asks' a clutch to slip on takeoff or upshift/downshift is exceedingly difficult to do via text exchange, such as in a forum.

I have a friend who claims he never slips the clutch, yet not only can I hear it and smell it when I ride with him, but over the years he invariably replaces clutches on his machines easily inside of 25k miles. He takes ages to fully engage the clutch on takeoff (lots of revs!), and routinely downshifts without a rev matching throttle blip 'asking' the clutch disk to do all of the speed matching among the drivetrain components while he rides the clutch pedal. He thinks of himself as a competent manual gearbox operator, having driven them all his driving life, but is in fact incredibly insensitive to machinery.

I went from replacing clutch disks at least annually in my early muscle car drag racing days (low experience and abusive style), to getting 150k+ miles out of my track driven street car clutches (lots of experience and expert coaching).

So a long winded way of saying driving style has a huge impact on clutch life, and trying to figure out if the issue is the clutch or the driver is nigh on impossible without direct observation.

on a hill, I am just trying to make sure I don't roll back LOL

Mine does the same on an incline (and I am not riding the clutch).