Replacing the clutch on the VTX 1800

Preface
This is a walk-through for changing the clutch on the VTX 1800. I did this swap to the MTC clutch kit to stop clutch slipping on my friends bike. This is a pretty simple job which requires a few basic tools and a torque wrench. As always undertake this project at your own risk, but with a little common sense this isn't very hard to do. I hope this helps.

Preparation/supplies

New friction plates, whichever you choose - I used the MTC ones available from HDL

7 steel clutch plates, OEM #22321-MAT-000, available from HOP

2 new exhaust gaskets

1 quart of cheap 10W-40 oil for soaking the new plates (make sure it is NOT energy-conserving or contains Moly)

Black RTV or "Hondabond" liquid gasket maker

Torque wrench capable of 9 ft/lbs or 108 in/lbs

8mm and 10mm socket

5mm allen socket

Roughly 14" long piece of wooden dowel rod

Hammer

Gasket scraper or razor blade

If you're not changing your oil at the same time then you'll need some 2x lumber, bricks, etc to rest the bike on

Process
Before we get started we need to soak the new clutch plates in oil. Any quart of cheap 10W-40 should suffice as we'll soak the plates and likely dispose of it afterwards (IMO there's too much possibility of it getting dirty to want to reuse it). Make sure that the cheap stuff you get doesn't have friction modifiers like Moly and you don't want any oil stamped "energy conserving" - these additives cause clutch slippage. You can put the plates in a bin (like an oil drain pan) or just put them in a ziploc bag and pour the oil in with them. You don't have to soak the steel plates as well but I do for good measure. You soak the plates in advance to prevent them from being totally dry when you install them, by soaking the steel plates as well it just adds a little more oil for when installing the plates. They need to soak for at least an hour before installing them, I prefer to try and soak them overnight before installation if possible.

With the plates soaking we can start working on the bike itself. Remove your exhaust, this is different from type to type so I'll just say remove it - remove the old exhaust gaskets too! Once your exhaust is off decide if you're changing your oil now or not. If you're changing your oil then drain the crankcase and leave it empty until afterwards. If you're not changing the oil then put the front and rear tire on a 2x board or other roughly 2 inch block. I did mine by putting just the rear tire on 2 2x6's but it's up to you. With the bike on these blocks rest it on it's sidestand, trust me it'll be fine.
Now looking at the bike from the right side remove the 7 5mm allen bolts holding the clutch cover on and the 5 5mm allen bolts holding the timing cover on.

Then remove the big rubber dampener from over the clutch cover.

Be careful when you remove the clutch cover, there are 10 little rubber "thingy's" that act as vibration dampeners for the cover. Sometimes they stick to the crankcase cover so you have to remove them and reinstall them where they go.

This is what they look like:

This is where they go:

Anyways, back on track... With the covers off it's time to remove the right crankcase cover itself. This consists of 15 8mm bolts which you can see here:

Now keep in mind, there are 3 different sized case bolts here, so to make this a little less complicated on reassembly I HIGHLY suggest a little something like this for the case bolts:

This idea works great on anything with a lot of different sized bolts/screws where you need to remember exactly where they go. You can see the holes in mine, but many of the bolts were reinstalled already when the pic was snapped.
With all the bolts removed take your hammer and wooden dowel rod, come from the left side of the bike behind the rear cylinder and slide the rod through until it touches this tab on the right side case:

The pic is from the top of the engine looking down at the case where the timing and clutch "circles" meet the "flat" area on top the case. With the dowel against that tab a couple of light pops with the hammer should break the cover loose. Something else to keep in mind once the case is open is that the edges can be fairly sharp and I've heard of a couple of guys actually slicing themselves pretty good on them, so be careful! (Big thanks to Bill Lage aka Wyandotte Kid for this pointer!)
With the cover off here's what you will see:

Remove all 6 of the clutch bolts and springs and set them aside. With the bolts and springs removed you should be able to remove the lifter plate (the plate the bolts and springs were in). This is what you'll see now:

At this point the old clutch plates will just lift out, you can pull them out one by one, it will alternate one friction plate and one steel plate all the way to the back of the basket. In total you will remove 8 friction plates and 7 steel ones.

Now that the old clutch plates are out, begin installing the new clutch by putting a friction plate in first and then alternating steel/friction/steel/friction until you have 8 friction plates and 7 steel plates in. For every plate you install make sure and press it firmly into place on top of the last one so there is no binding or warping between plates. You should start and end with a friction plate. Make sure when installing the plates that all the "inner" plate notches sit in the same grooves on the basket. The outer plate (the last friction plate) goes in a separate notch on the basket, you can see how it goes here:

At this point reinstall the lifter plate over the clutch plates and then reinstall the springs and bolts.

If you're installing an MTC clutch:
The original MTC clutch came with red springs and a set of 6 .025" shims and 6 .050" shims. You install one shim of each thickness on the bolt/spring posts after installing the lifter plate but before installing the springs and bolts. This gives you a grand total of .075" of shim per spring.
The second generation MTC clutch came with the same red springs and a set of 12 .025" shims and 12 .050" shims. You install two shims of each thickness on the bolt/spring posts after installing the lifter plate but before installing the springs and bolts. This gives you a grand total of .150" of shim per spring.
The current version of the MTC clutch comes with blue/black springs and no shims. You install this clutch and springs exactly like the stock setup with no worries about shims.

You can read more about the various versions of the MTC clutch and how myself and other riders worked together with MTC to get improvements made here.

With the proper shims (if applicable) on each post put the springs and bolts back on and tighten them slowly down in a criss-cross pattern (like in the pic).

Once they are all close to being tight torque them down to 9 ft/lbs or 108 in/lbs and BE CAREFUL. Many folks have reported breaking these bolts, but using an "old school" deflector style torque wrench I have never had any problems and I've done a lot of these.

Once all 6 bolts are torqued properly we can begin the reassembly process. Begin by cleaning off both the case surfaces using a gasket scraper (available at auto parts stores for a few bucks and WELL worth it IMO) or if you don't have one a razor blade will suffice. Scrape all the old gasket off and make sure they are clean.

With both surfaces thoroughly cleaned apply a small bead of black RTV or "Hondabond" liquid gasket material to the case cover that is removed.

I use my finger afterwards to make sure it's spread evenly and completely over all the edges. if you look closely at the cover you'll see that it's not necessary to do the "outer circles" around the timing and clutch covers where it is double-walled as there are small slots there anyway. With the liquid gasket in place you can slide the cover back onto the case and begin reinstalling all 15 of the 8mm cover bolts again.

I used to recommend these be torqued to 20 ft/lbs as the manual mentions this value for the right crankcase cover, but after swapping many sets and talking about this with some others (a big thanks especially to Big Al aka TxVTX) I am changing this value to 9 ft/lbs. I have come too close to snapping bolts with my torque wrench set at 15 ft/lbs rather than 20, and Al convinced me that the 9 ft/lbs should be more than adequate.
Bottom line - torque these to 9 ft/lbs!
With the cover back on and torqued down wipe up any gasket maker you may have squeezed out during reinstall.

Now you can reinstall the rubber dampener (pic above), the clutch cover and it's 7 5mm bolts and the timing cover and it's 5 5mm bolts. These only require a few ft/lbs of torque each so just be careful snugging these down normally and don't wrench on them too hard.
That's it, you're done! now just reinstall your exhaust system per whichever set of directions you need to follow, making sure to use new exhaust gaskets:

Torque the exhaust bolts to 17 ft/lbs. Go back over them several times as some will "loosen" a bit as you snug the others down. Make sure to retorque these again after a couple of rides as the heat/cold cycle of riding will tend to loosen things up a little bit as well. If you drained your oil don't get over-excited and forget to put BOTH your drain plugs back properly (22 ft/lbs), install a new filter, and add 3.9 quarts of your favorite oil.

Afterthoughts
This is a swap that will be necessary at some point in time during ownership of the bike. The clutch is not a lifetime component on these bikes, especially since most slip from day one. I opted to install the MTC clutch because in this particular application the bike needed the extra grab (it was running a 40 shot of nitrous). Oftentimes a simple spring swap will be all that is needed to stop slipping on a stock bike, but if that doesn't solve your problem then this may be your answer. Total cost from HDL is around $230 between the MTC friction plates, OEM steel plates and exhaust gaskets, but I can tell you the difference is night and day.
Some say it's not necessary to replace the stock steel plates unless you are really having problems with the clutch, and sometimes this is true BUT... The VTX doesn't do the best job at oiling the inner plates, so what you usually find when you open the bike is the outer plates in good condition and the inner plates burned up/glazed. So yes, you might be able to reuse some (possibly all) of the steel plates, but do you really want to open the bike up and find that you need to replace them but don't have them? Then you have to wait with your bike unrideable and the right case wide open while you order new steels in. My personal opinion is that it's worth the ~$50 of "insurance" to not be stuck in that situation. It also saves you from having to do the job twice if you reuse the old plates and have problems later on.
With a friend around to help remove and reinstall the exhaust this isn't a hard job to do. I figure it's about an hour total for job time NOT including the exhaust removal and reinstall (some exhausts are a little tricky to get on/off).